


A Little Problem

by Yassandra



Category: Atlantis (UK TV)
Genre: ...but we love him anyway!, Age Regression/De-Aging, Community: smallfandombang, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Hercules can be a bit of an idiot..., M/M, cuteness ahead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 09:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10717014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yassandra/pseuds/Yassandra
Summary: A routine mission away from the Argo goes awry when Hercules makes a mistake and triggers a curse. Now he's left with a little problem - well, two little problems really...





	1. Tears of a Goddess

**Author's Note:**

> A/N Written for round six of the Small Fandoms Bang, and also for Hurt/Comfort Bingo for the 'de-age' prompt.
> 
> Please go and check out the lovely artwork for this fic by Knowmefirst [here on Dreamwidth](http://knowmefirst.dreamwidth.org/177592.html) and give the artist some appreciation too :-)
> 
> The art is integrated into the fic.

 

* * *

 

 

"Come on. It must be through here."

Jason moved lightly through the corridors of the long abandoned palace, his companions at his heels.

"We're never going to find it in this maze," Hercules complained. "I always say it's never too late to give up and go back. A man should know when he's beaten."

Jason shot an exasperated look at him.

"Cassandra said that if we wanted to get past the Scylla we need the draught containing Aphrodite's tears," he said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "It should be just up ahead in the treasury… but remember what she said – don't touch _anything_ else in there!"

At the back of the group, Pythagoras exchanged a look with Icarus, rolling his eyes at Jason's single minded determination and Hercules' complaining; both were expected. Icarus' lips twitched as he suppressed the urge to laugh out loud.

In a way Hercules was right, Pythagoras reflected: the palace they found themselves in was vast and labyrinthine. It would be more than easy to get lost in here. Jason was moving forwards confidently, however, as though he knew exactly where he was going; as though he was being drawn onwards. But then he always did. Perhaps it was another aspect of being touched by the Gods? Pythagoras made the mental note to try to discuss it with his friend at a more opportune moment. If Jason's unnaturally acute sense of direction was a Gods given gift it could come in very handy in the future.

He would have to pick his moment though. Talking about the gifts that Jason had inherited from his mother was always a touchy subject. In fact _anything_ to do with Pasiphae was a touchy subject as far as Jason was concerned. Pythagoras privately suspected it was because, at least in part, Jason was afraid of what he might do; what he might become. He had been lured away into darkness once and the mathematician believed that his friend was afraid of it happening again – however unlikely that seemed to everyone else.

They rounded another corner. Ahead of them the corridor seemed to end in a blank wall.

"What did I tell you!" Hercules whinged. "We're lost."

Fortunately, perhaps, his friends chose to ignore him.

Jason moved into the dead end. He looked at the wall to his left for a long moment and then turned to the right where an apparently new torch still unexpectedly sat in the sconce; a strange sight since everything else in this abandoned palace was rapidly rotting away. Jason's eyes narrowed as he peered at it, before turning back to look at the opposite wall.

"What is it?" Pythagoras asked, coming to stand at his shoulder.

"Don't know," Jason answered thoughtfully. "Something Cassandra said… about shadows showing the way forwards." He looked at the sconce again. "Can I have the torch for a minute?" he asked.

Icarus handed it to him without a word. Jason carefully lit the torch on the wall and handed it back with a half-smile of thanks. He peered at the sconce again then fumbled in a small pouch at his belt, taking out a small metal object. He bit his lip.

"Cassandra gave me this before we left _Argo_ ," he said softly. "She said that when there seemed to be no way forwards this would guide us."

"That's the problem with mystic oracles," Hercules grumbled. "Unless you can manage to pin them down, they're so vague that you can't really understand what they're going on about."

Pythagoras glanced at him disapprovingly. Up until now Cassandra had always seemed far more helpful and specific in her advice than the old Oracle had been, although he did have to admit that what she had told Jason this time seemed more than a little random.

"What are you thinking?" he asked his heroic friend, who was still looking between the sconce and the opposite wall.

"That there's a tiny socket at the front of the sconce that this would fit in perfectly," Jason murmured.

He stepped up to the sconce and slotted the little metal object into the socket with an audible click.

Pythagoras peered at it closely. It was a tiny effigy of Aphrodite, the smallest that Pythagoras had ever seen, her arms outstretched by her sides showing off her naked glory.

Jason exchanged a quick look with Pythagoras and turned to face the opposite wall. The light from the torch behind the little effigy cast her shadow large on the wall. Jason moved stepped over to it without speaking and examined the shadow carefully. He placed the palms of his hands flat against the shadow of the Goddess' and gently pushed. There was a grinding noise and then the entire section of wall swung away to reveal a set of steps cut from the rock that the palace was built on and plunging down into darkness.

"I guess we go that way then," Icarus remarked softly. Somehow it seemed almost sacrilegious to raise their voices in such a silent place.

Holding the torch aloft, the inventor's son began the descent down the steps, his companions at his heels.

The stairs opened out into a surprisingly large chamber. Icarus held the torch aloft and stared around in wonder. From somewhere behind him he heard one of his friends' gasp. The contents of the room were incredible. Gold and precious objects littered every surface; everywhere they looked revealed a new wonder.

"We found the treasury then," Icarus remarked dryly.

"Remember… we mustn't touch anything," Jason murmured earnestly. "We need to get the draught and get out of here."

Pythagoras rolled his eyes once more. Jason was stating the obvious again; they all knew why they were here after all. He peered around the chamber.

"How do we find it though?" he asked. "Do we know what the vial actually looks like? In all this treasure we could easily miss it. Hercules, stop that!" he added, spotting his old friend about to touch a golden cup. Perhaps Jason's warning had been needed after all, he reflected.

"I do not think that that is going to be a problem," Icarus murmured, wonder colouring his tone.

Pythagoras looked sharply at him. Icarus was standing still, staring at something in front of him. The mathematician followed his lover's gaze. He drew in a sharp breath.

On a pedestal on its own on the far side of the chamber there was a small, bejewelled bottle, well-sealed with wax. A shaft of light from somewhere above bathed it in luminescence, making the jewels glitter brightly. The pedestal itself was carved with depictions of Aphrodite herself, in many forms. Icarus was right. It was obvious that this was what they had come for. It had clearly been the most highly prized treasure in the chamber for the former occupants of the palace.

"What do you think happened to them?" Icarus asked, echoing Pythagoras' thoughts.

"Who?" Hercules demanded testily, coming to stand beside Pythagoras.

He still hadn't fully forgiven Icarus for his betrayal and generally avoided speaking to the young man wherever possible, so Pythagoras took any attempt to engage in conversation as a good sign.

"The people who lived here," Icarus answered. "They left everything of value behind. I can't see anyone doing that willingly."

"Does it matter?" Hercules demanded. "Let's just do what we came here to do and get back to the boat."

"That may be more difficult than it seems," Pythagoras murmured, staring hard at the pedestal.

In front of it a chasm opened up in the floor. The four men approached carefully and peered down into it. The bottom was out of sight.

"Looks deep," Icarus mumbled.

Pythagoras resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. Sometimes he didn't know whether the award for stating the obvious should go to Jason or Icarus. He turned his attention to the beam that spanned the chasm, stretching from the floor of the main chamber where they stood to the small platform that the pedestal stood on. It looked none to stable; it appeared to have been charred at some point and looked more than a little rotten.

"That does not look safe to use," he stated, "so we must look for another way to cross."

"Maybe we could build a bridge," Icarus said.

"Build a bridge?" Hercules spluttered. "Build a bridge? And I suppose you have all the things we would need to build a bridge in your bag, do you?"

Icarus flushed.

"Hercules!" Pythagoras admonished sharply. "Icarus was only trying to help."

"It was a ridiculous idea," Hercules replied loudly.

Icarus rolled his eyes. He was growing used to the fact that any idea he had would automatically be ridiculed by Hercules. Pythagoras had been quick to tell him that Hercules would forgive him eventually but he couldn't help but wish that the big man would get on with it.

"And do you have any better ideas?" Pythagoras demanded of his older friend. "It may not be such a ridiculous idea as you seem to think. If we were to search upstairs, we might perhaps find some wood that we could use to put a makeshift bridge together."

Hercules snorted.

"I might have known you'd take _his_ side," he growled.

As the two old friends descended into bickering (not an unusual occurrence by any means), Icarus was distracted by a movement that he caught out of the corner of his eye. He turned with a frown to see Jason pulling the strap of his sword up over his head.

"Would you mind holding this?" the young hero asked softly, handing the sword to Icarus.

Icarus blinked in surprise.

"Of course," he muttered, taking it off Jason.

Jason flashed him one of his soft, almost shy smiles and moved to unlace his breastplate, completely ignoring his arguing friends. He slipped the armour over his head and held it out to Icarus too.

"And this?" he asked, before bending and unlacing his sandals and stepping out of them.

"Why are you getting undressed?" Icarus asked in confusion.

"I need to be able to move as freely as possible," Jason responded.

Finally alerted to the fact that his impulsive friend was up to something, Pythagoras turned away from the still spluttering Hercules.

"Jason? What are you doing?" he asked suspiciously.

"Going over there to get Aphrodite's tears," Jason answered serenely, moving behind the rest of them and backing up to give himself a good run up. He started to rock from the heel of one foot to the ball of the other, hands swinging loosely at his sides and his eyes intent as he stared at the beam across the chasm.

"Are you mad?" Hercules demanded. "It'll never hold your weight."

"Trust me," Jason replied with a soft smile, never taking his eyes off his target.

"Jason," Pythagoras began, moving towards his friend.

Before he could get there though, Jason took off, racing towards the chasm at full speed. At the last possible moment he jumped and flicked in the air, bringing his hands down in the centre of the beam and pushing back off them into a spectacular somersault. He had landed on the other side before any of his friends had had chance to catch their breath.

"Show off!" Hercules called across the gap.

Jason shot him a bright, lop-sided grin over his shoulder. Then he turned back to the pedestal in front of him. He licked his lips, reached out and carefully lifted up the vial, half expecting to set off some sort of booby trap like in the Indiana Jones films he used to watch as a kid.

Nothing happened.

He turned back to face his friends. Getting back across was going to be much trickier than getting over here, he decided. The platform was decidedly on the small side and the pedestal was in the way, meaning that he couldn't get a decent run up.

Oh well, nothing ventured and all that.

Jason carefully tucked the small vial inside the lacings of his wrist brace, relying in the tight strip of leather to keep it in place. He backed up as far as the pedestal would allow and ran towards the beam, knowing that the lack of run up would mean that he couldn't launch himself as far as he had when he had crossed the first time.

This time he only made it about a third of the way down the beam before his hands came down. He pushed himself off into a handspring, hoping his momentum would carry him far enough along the beam. As his feet came down though, he heard the wood crack and desperately launched himself forwards towards the floor of the chamber where his friends waited even as the beam gave way and fell into the chasm beneath him.

He nearly made it back to safety but the jump was just that bit too far and he found himself scrabbling frantically at the edge of the chasm with his fingers, before Hercules' strong hand caught hold of his wrist and hauled him back to safety.

"Idiot," the bulky wrestler grumbled testily once Jason was back on solid ground.

"That was an unnecessary risk." Pythagoras sounded irritated.

Jason shrugged.

"It worked, didn't it?" he replied nonchalantly.

"Yes," Pythagoras retorted, "but it very easily could have resulted in the loss of the vial… or your death… or _both_. We _could_ have come up with a far less risky solution if only you had given me the time to think. We are supposed to be working together. You simply cannot keep making unilateral decisions without consulting anyone else… and you _really_ cannot keep taking that sort of risk. How do you think we could have explained it to Ariadne if anything had happened to you then? And how do you think she would have taken the news?"

Jason sighed. This was not an argument he wanted to have now (or at any time if the truth be told). He still felt that what he had done was right (because he _had_ recovered the draught that they needed after all) but knew that Pythagoras would never agree – he recognised the signs of an imminent storm from his usually gentle friend.

"It's done now," he murmured, turning away from the mathematician and towards Icarus (who also looked a bit cross, Jason couldn't help but notice). "Let's get back to the _Argo_."

Pythagoras glared at his back for a moment, before stalking off, grumbling under his breath.

Jason sighed again and reached inside his wrist brace, pulling out the little bejewelled vial and handing it to Icarus to put into the bag that the inventor's son carried. Icarus took it without comment, one eyebrow raised.

Before Jason could take any of his belongings back from Icarus, Pythagoras' voice rang out through the chamber once more.

"Hercules! No!"

The genius sounded horrified. Both Jason and Icarus turned automatically to look towards him.

Hercules had clearly been examining the treasures on the far side of the chamber. On a gilded plate there were several gold apples, so lifelike that it almost seemed you could take a bite out of one of them. Apparently forgetting Cassandra's admonition not to touch anything, Hercules was reaching out unthinkingly to pick one of them up when Pythagoras called out.

The blonde was not far from Hercules and was moving to try to stop his old friend from making a possibly fatal error. Jason didn't stop to think. Forgetting Icarus for a moment, he darted across the room, intent on helping Pythagoras in stopping Hercules.

Quick as both young men were, they were still too late. Hercules picked up one of the golden apples to have a good look at it before either one of them could get there. The apple started to glow. Hercules dropped it in surprise just as Jason barrelled into him, knocking him flying.

The flare of bright, white light that bathed the room stabbed Icarus' eyes and he flung one arm up over his face to protect them. When the light finally faded enough to allow him to drop his arm, blinking painfully and eyes still watering, his gaze met Hercules' shocked face before turning slightly to look for his lover.

He froze.

Where was Pythagoras?

He turned to look in horror at Hercules. It seemed as though the two of them were alone in the room; as though the other two had completely disappeared from the chamber.

The burly wrestler pushed himself to his feet and purposefully made his way across to where he had been standing before. He peered around a pile of treasure, clearly searching for his friends. Icarus started to move to his side.

"What in the name of the Gods?"

Hercules' horrified exclamation brought Icarus to his side in an instant. He peered around the pile of treasure himself, his heart in his throat at the thought of what he might see; of what might have befallen Pythagoras.

Whatever he had been expecting it was not this.

Standing in a puddle of clothing, with Pythagoras' tunic hanging down past his calves, was a small blonde boy with the bluest eyes Icarus had ever seen.

The child blinked.

"Who are you?" he said, his voice tremulous. "Where is my mother? And where is Arcas?"

Icarus gulped. This was not good. Alongside him, Hercules swore loudly. The child frowned deeply.

"My mother says that only uncouth men swear," he stated, "and that I should not speak to them."

Icarus gulped again.

"Pythagoras?" he asked. "Is that you?"


	2. Something Like a Situation

The child's chin wobbled.

"How do you know my name?" he asked.

Icarus gaped at him for a moment, unsure how to answer, before his brain kicked into action.

"Erm… I know your family," he said, crossing his fingers behind his back. "You have met me before… The first time was several years ago now."

It wasn't a complete lie, he told himself, and he couldn't exactly tell this child the truth.

Pythagoras looked at him sceptically.

"If we have met before," he began, "why do I not remember you?"

Icarus desperately tried to think of a believable answer.

"Err… well… like I said it was a few years ago," he stammered. "You were younger then. Perhaps that is why you do not remember."

Pythagoras stared at him, his eyes betraying his fear.

"Where is my mother?" he asked again, his tone increasingly suspicious. "And Arcas?"

Icarus mentally cringed, although he tried to keep it from showing on his face. Pythagoras had once told him that his mother had died some years ago, but he could hardly tell a confused and frightened little boy that – especially since the child would have no good reason to believe him.

"Your mother is at home… on Samos. Your little brother is with her," he replied.

Pythagoras' small face creased into a frown.

"Why am I not with them?" he demanded.

Icarus floundered for a moment – even transformed back into a young child, Pythagoras was still incredibly sharp.

_He's still a genius_ , he reminded himself. _A small genius, but still a genius._

"Your mother had to go away for a while," he improvised quickly. "She went to look after someone who was unwell… a relative. She asked Hercules here to look after you while she was away… We had to go on a short voyage you see and she thought it might be good for you to see a little of the world beyond Samos."

The child's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but he turned his attention to Hercules.

"I know you," he said flatly. "You're the pig man… and I remember something about you and pies."

Icarus nearly snorted with laughter at Hercules' affronted expression.

The burly wrestler glared at him.

"If this one's Pythagoras, where's Jason?" he growled.

"I don't know," Icarus answered, looking slowly around.

As he turned he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, but by the time he managed to look directly at the spot it was gone. Icarus stepped back around the pile of treasure, moving very slowly and carefully. To his right a golden bowl fell with a clatter but as Icarus turned his head to look at it, he caught sight of the faint flicker of movement again out of the corner of his left eye.

"Hide and seek," he muttered to Hercules. "He's playing hide and seek."

"I'll give him hide and seek," Hercules growled. "I'll tan his hide if he starts playing up."

"Hercules, he's probably frightened," Icarus answered in a quiet murmur. "I know I would be." He looked towards the spot where he had last seen movement. "It's alright," he called, raising his voice to normal levels. "We are not going to hurt you. You can come out."

Nothing moved.

Icarus felt a small hand slip into his and looked down to see Pythagoras standing next to him, his small face reflecting fear.

"It's alright," Icarus murmured, crouching down to the child's level. "There's nothing to be scared of. We're just looking for another one of our friends who has got a bit lost."

As he spoke to Pythagoras, he caught sight of a small dark haired child darting between two piles of treasure over the blonde child's shoulder moving faster than he would have thought was possible. Icarus smiled and stood up, moving slowly and carefully over to the place where he had seen the child disappear. He crouched down again and rested his elbows on his knees, peering into the dark space between the piles. There at the back, right against the wall of the cavern, was a second small child. This child had wild dark curls and huge eyes set in a thin face. He also looked very angry.

"Hello Jason," Icarus murmured as gently as possible. "Why don't you come out from there?"

The little boy shook his head stubbornly, his eyes blazing.

"We don't have time for this," Hercules growled loudly, shoving Icarus out of the way and reaching into the gap to grab the little boy.

He jumped back with a pained cry, holding one hand protectively in the other.

"The little bugger bit me," he declared loudly, the anger in his voice clear.

Icarus resisted the urge to chuckle.

"I think this is a case where a little patience and kindness may pay off," he murmured quietly.

"Patience and kindness? He needs a clip round the ear!"

"Hercules!" Icarus hissed, nodding towards Pythagoras.

The child was half cringing back, his blue eyes very wide.

"Remember what his father was like," Icarus continued.

Hercules shot him a startled look.

"Pythagoras told you about that?" he asked.

"Yes," Icarus murmured simply. "I know him better than you think… besides, after everything that has happened we agreed there would be no more secrets between us."

The burly wrestler nodded thoughtfully.

"Fair enough," he said.

He turned towards the little blonde boy and crouched down.

"Don't be frightened," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you – I'd never want to hurt either you or Jason, Pythagoras."

"But you said he needed hitting," Pythagoras replied.

"I was joking," Hercules said. "It was a joke." He looked back at Icarus. "What in the name of the Gods do we do now though? They can't stay like this forever!"

"I think it is fairly obvious that they have been cursed by some form of magic," Icarus answered. "I think the best thing we can do is to get out of here and get them back to the _Argo_ where we can speak to Cassandra and look for a way to put this right."

"And how do you propose we do that when we can't even get _him_ out from in there?" Hercules groused, pointing towards the two piles of treasure that Jason was hiding between.

Icarus sighed and turned back to peer between the piles. The dark haired little boy was watching his every move suspiciously through narrowed eyes.

"You can come out now," Icarus said gently. "Hercules is not going to try to grab you again."

Jason made no move to leave his hiding place; he drew his legs up and wrapped his arms around them, resting his chin on his knees.

Icarus turned looked back over his shoulder at Hercules.

"I think we are going to have to be patient," he said.

Before Hercules could answer, Pythagoras darted forwards and wriggled into the narrow gap. Icarus could hear his high childish voice murmuring but couldn't make out exactly what he was saying. Suddenly he wriggled back out and stood up, smiling broadly. Moments later, the second little boy wriggled out of the gap too and came to stand beside him.

It surprised Icarus that as a child Jason was actually slightly smaller than Pythagoras. He was quite small for his apparent age and painfully skinny.

"Hello Jason," Icarus said gently. "It is nice to see you properly."

The little boy didn't answer. Instead, he turned towards Pythagoras and whispered something in his ear.

"He wants to know who you are," Pythagoras said firmly.

Icarus smiled.

"I am Icarus," he answered, "and this is Hercules." He gestured towards the burly wrestler.

Jason whispered something to Pythagoras again.

"Are we going to be staying with you?" Pythagoras asked.

"For now," Icarus replied.

He didn't fail to spot the look of resignation that came across Jason's small face.

"We need to get them back to the boat," Hercules declared.

"Indeed," Icarus replied. "If nothing else, we need to find them some proper clothing."

He looked at the two little boys with a sigh. Both of them were wearing their usual tunics (as they had been when the curse had hit them) but whereas _they_ had shrunk into children, their clothing had remained at normal size and therefore swamped them both. He opened the bag he was carrying (he was grateful that he'd thought to bring one of reasonable size – it had seemed sensible since he hadn't known how large the vial containing Aphrodite's tears would be) and moved around the cavern, picking up the other items of clothing that his two companions had lost during their transformation and shoving them into it.

As Icarus was gathering up the clothes, Hercules approached the two boys and knelt down.

"How old are you?" he asked Pythagoras gently.

"If you know my mother and she asked you to take me with you on a journey, then you should know how old I am shouldn't you?" the little blonde replied, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"Right… right… of course I should," Hercules answered, silently cursing his old friend's intelligence. "But the thing is that I'm a _very_ old man and I forget things."

Pythagoras looked at him solemnly.

"You _are_ old," he said. "You must be even older than Stolos the baker… and he is the oldest man in my village. Does being old hurt?"

Hercules resisted the urge to growl and ignored the snigger he heard from Icarus somewhere behind him.

"No," he said as patiently as he could. "Being this old doesn't hurt… although there are plenty of people around who are a lot older than me."

"Really?" Pythagoras asked sceptically. "I have never met anyone _that_ old."

"And I am sure you have met a great many people," Hercules rumbled sardonically.

"No," Pythagoras admitted in a small voice. "Not all that many. Not many people come through my village." He bit his lip and looked down at the floor. "I am sorry if I have said anything wrong," he added. "My mother is always telling me that I should think before I speak."

"No harm done," Hercules said gently. "But you never answered my question… how old are you?"

Pythagoras looked up at him from under his eyelashes.

"I am eight," he said quietly. "It was my birthday a few weeks ago."

That, Hercules reflected, was perfectly true. Pythagoras' birthday had come and gone while they were at sea, marked as well as they could with a decent meal and a few homemade gifts. He was, however, a good deal more than eight.

"And what about you?" Hercules said, looking at Jason.

The child glared back at him without speaking.

"Cat got your tongue?" Hercules asked, grinning.

His smile fell away as the child continued to stare at him. He sighed. The last thing he really wanted to be dealing with was a sulky, bad tempered child. Somewhere behind Hercules there was a loud crash as one of the piles of treasure fell over. The dark haired child jumped, head whipping round to peer anxiously past Hercules.

"Sorry," Icarus' voice came across the cavern.

Hercules ignored him, focussing his whole attention on the two little boys in front of him.

_Icarus is right_ , he thought. _He is frightened… they both are._

Without even stopping to think about it, he moved forwards purposefully and laid a hand gently on Jason's shoulder. The child turned to look at him, eyes wide. Hercules could feel the boy's thin shoulder trembling slightly under his hand. He resisted the urge to wince.

"I am not going to hurt you," he tried to reassure both children. "And I am going to make sure that no-one else does either."

Jason stood still for a moment before launching himself at the startled wrestler and wrapping himself around Hercules, clinging limpet-like to his large friend. Hercules enveloped the lad in a hug. He half turned and opened his arm in silent invitation to the anxiously watching Pythagoras. In seconds he had his arms full of both children.

"Alright," Hercules said comfortingly. "Everything is going to be alright. I know that everything is scary but I promise it will be fine. I think we need to get you both out of here and to somewhere a bit nicer. How does that sound? We'll all go back to the boat and we'll see if we can't find you boys some proper clothes and something to eat," he went on, not waiting for an answer to his previous question. "And then we will get everything sorted out."

He gently detached the two children, stood up and nodded to Icarus.

"Alright, let's go," he said, taking a small hand in each of his and setting off back across the chamber and up the stairs with the two young boys on either side of him and Icarus bringing up the rear.

Once they were back in the corridor at the top Hercules stopped and turned towards Icarus, a deep frown creasing his forehead.

"Do you remember the way out of here?" he muttered.

"Once we get out of this passage?" Icarus murmured, brow furrowing as he thought. "Erm…"

"You don't know do you?" Hercules accused.

"Well do you?" Icarus demanded.

"No," Hercules admitted grudgingly. "But this place is a maze… I said so earlier."

He looked down to find the two children looking at him curiously.

"Are we lost?" Pythagoras asked.

"No, no, no," said Hercules. "I just… don't quite know where we are at the moment."

Pythagoras giggled.

"That is what being lost means, silly," he pointed out.

"He might be a child but he is still going to be clever," Icarus murmured to Hercules.

They started to walk towards the end of the passage, stopping once more when they got to the end, trying to work out whether to go left or right.

"I got lost once," Pythagoras chattered on, brightly. "Mother asked me to take Arcas outside and play with him. We went out into the fields and played for a long time but then we couldn't find our way home. Arcas was crying and it took hours and hours to find our way home. Mother was really scared when she couldn't find us outside and she told me I was a brave and clever boy for finding my way home… but she said I was not allowed to take Arcas into the fields to play again until I was bigger… Do you think I am big enough now that I am eight?"

Icarus exchanged a helpless look with Hercules.

"Um… maybe wait until you are a little older," he said.

Pythagoras nodded gravely but looked a little disappointed.

"Perhaps I will be big enough when I am nine," he said. "Or maybe Mother will think that I am grown up enough once I have got back to Samos from this journey with you… Do you think she might? She taught me what to do if I got lost again. She said that all I had to do was look at where the Sun was and I would know the direction… because if it is morning and I have not eaten my midday meal it will be in the east but if I have eaten and it is afternoon it will be in the west. Mother said that I can always work out what direction I am facing in because of where the Sun is."

"Which would be a lot more useful if we didn't have a roof over our heads and could actually see the Sun," Hercules muttered.

Pythagoras looked crestfallen.

"That would be a problem," he answered sadly.

Icarus glared at Hercules, who half shrugged and gave the inventor's son a blank look, clearly unaware that he had upset the little boy. Icarus nodded meaningfully at Pythagoras and saw the look of dawning comprehension come over the bulky wrestler's face.

"Yes, well I am sure it will come in very handy once we are back outside," Hercules rumbled. "It will help us to find the ship. It's a clever trick and… erm… you are a clever boy for remembering it."

Pythagoras positively glowed at the praise.

"Mother says that I am very clever," he said. "I know lots and lots of things… but there are a lot of things that I do not know… I want to though. I want to know _everything_."

Hercules found himself smiling indulgently; of course Pythagoras wanted to know _everything_ – inquisitiveness was in his basic nature.

"Am I talking too much?" the little blonde asked, suddenly looking anxious. "Father is always telling me I talk too much. He says that no-one wants to hear my voice… and then he gets angry. He is always angry at me but I do not know why… I don't mean to make him angry."

Hercules felt a sudden brief surge of anger at the child's father. How could anyone have ever treated sweet, gentle Pythagoras that way?

"No," he growled. "You talk as much as you like. We do need to work out which way to go though."

Hercules peered down the left hand passageway before turning to look to the right. Both directions looked very much the same.

"I think we should go that way," he said, pointing to the right.

"Are you sure?" Icarus asked.

"No," Hercules admitted. "But since we don't know the right way to go, it seems to me that one way is as good as the other. If it starts to look wrong we can double back. Unless you have a better idea?"

Icarus sighed.

"No," he said. "Neither of us can remember the way so we should try to find our way out as best we can."

As they were talking, Jason had let go of Hercules' hand and stepped around the burly wrestler to peer curiously down the two corridors; first right and then left. He turned to look up at the two adults, currently talking to one another, then looked back down the left hand passageway again, before taking off down it at a fast trot.

"Jason!" Hercules yelled, reaching out to grab him just a second too late. "Come on," he growled to Icarus. "We need to catch him."

They set off running after the fleeing child expecting to catch him easily. Yet in every passageway they raced down, Jason seemed to be disappearing around the next corner, always just about in sight but well beyond reach.

"When we catch him, he's going to be sorry!" Hercules puffed. "I will not be letting him out of my sight again… even if I have to tie a bit of rope around his waist."

The corridors twisted and turned, this way and that, until the two adults had lost all sense of direction. Their pace was perhaps a little slower than it would normally have been, given that they were having to accommodate Pythagoras' currently much shorter legs, but even if they had been running as fast as they could, Icarus suspected they wouldn't have been able to keep up with Jason. He said as much to Hercules between gasping breaths. Hercules gave him a funny look.

"He's still touched by the Gods," the burly wrestler panted. "Just like Pythagoras is still clever, Jason is still going to be ridiculously fast and agile."

Finally the corridor they were in opened out into a large atrium, it's roof missing at one end and open to the sky. Weeds were growing up through the cracked marble of the floor and in one corner a tree was growing up through the rubble where the walls had once been – evidence of just how long this palace had been abandoned and how close it was to being completely reclaimed by nature.

Jason had sat down on the broken base of what must have once been a carved pillar and Pythagoras trotted over to join him. Icarus stood there with his mouth hanging open for a moment, before closing it with an audible snap and turning to share a startled look with Hercules. This was the way they had come into the palace.

"How did you do that?" he asked. "How did you know the way out?"

Jason shrugged and whispered something into Pythagoras' ear.

"He doesn't know," Pythagoras said. "It just looked like the right way."

"Is there any reason that Jason couldn't have told us that himself?" Hercules growled.

"He has been told he is not allowed to talk to strangers," Pythagoras stated.

"But he's talking to you," Hercules rumbled.

"But I am not a grown up," Pythagoras replied, with a look that said he felt Hercules was being particularly dense.

Hercules shot him a disbelieving look.

"Of course," he muttered to himself. "Because that makes _perfect_ sense."

He marched purposefully over to the two boys and crouched down in front of them, reaching out to grasp Jason's shoulders firmly.

"Now listen," he said. "You cannot be running off like that. I know you found the way out for us and that's a good thing… but _anything_ could have happened to you. You need to make sure an adult knows where you are and goes with you. If you have been told not to speak to strangers, then I am pretty sure you will have been told not to run off too."

The dark-haired child bit his lip and looked at the ground. Hercules grasped the boy's chin gently but firmly and tilted his face up until he was looking into his eyes.

"You scared me," he rumbled softly, "and I want you to promise not to run off like that again. Can you do that for me?"

Jason nodded.

"Yes," he whispered.

Hercules smiled and tousled the child's dark curls.

"Good lad," he said.

He stood up with a slight grunt and looked back across the room at Icarus before turning back to the children.

"Let's get back to our boat," he said.

"Is it a big boat?" Pythagoras asked as they stood up and began to make their way out of the atrium. "I do not think I have ever been on a boat. I have watched the fishing boats setting sail from our beach though. Is it bigger than a fishing boat?"

"It's a lot bigger than a fishing boat," Hercules answered with a grin. "Just you wait and see."

"How is it that I do not remember travelling on it before if I came here from Samos with you?" the blonde child asked.

Hercules gave Icarus a helpless look.

"Erm… I don't know," he said. "Maybe you just forgot."

Pythagoras frowned, his lower lip jutting out as he thought about what the burly wrestler had said.

"But why would I forget?" he asked. "It does not make sense."

"Well we think there was a curse on that cavern we were in," Icarus answered, trying to make up something that the child would accept. "It made you forget about the ship and the journey to get here… but you didn't completely forget everything, did you? After all you remembered that Hercules likes pies."

"That is true," Pythagoras replied thoughtfully. "But wouldn't a curse have affected you too?"

"It did," Icarus assured him. "Hercules couldn't remember how old you were could he? And neither of us could remember the way out."

"No," the blonde child admitted.

By this time they had left the ruined palace and made their way outside. Hercules looked at the path leading down to the coast and bit back a curse.

"What is it?" Icarus asked.

"Look," the big man groused, pointing to the path.

Icarus looked where Hercules was pointing blankly. The path was a dirt track littered with small stones.

"What?" he asked.

" _They_ won't be able to walk down there," Hercules ground out, gesturing to the two children. "The ground is covered with stones and they're barefoot."

Icarus finally saw the problem.

"Oh," he replied.

"Oh indeed," Hercules growled. He looked at the two little boys calculatingly and finally came to a decision. "We'll have to carry them," he said. "Can you take Pythagoras if I take Jason?"

He looked down as he felt a tugging at the edge of his tunic. Jason was scowling up at him, lower lip jutting mutinously.

"I don't need to be carried," he said. "I'm not a baby. I can walk."

Hercules gave a long suffering sigh and crouched down next to the child.

"You listen to me," he rumbled. "No-one is saying you _are_ a baby… but it's a very long walk to the boat and the stones on that path will cut your feet to shreds… and I'm not going to carry you like a baby either – you have a choice: you can either go on my back or on my shoulders… but you are _not_ walking."

He watched Jason mulling it over.

"Tell you what," he added. "I don't really want to be carrying you for all that long either, so if we come to a bit where there aren't any stones you can walk then, alright?"

Jason hesitated for a moment and then nodded.

Hercules smiled.

"Alright then, Trouble," he said. "Back or shoulders?"

He studiously ignored the startled look that Icarus threw in his direction at the affectionate nickname he had called Jason.

"Can I have a piggy back?" Jason asked.

Hercules frowned slightly at the strange terminology. He supposed that Jason meant that he wanted to ride on his back but it was definitely a phrase he hadn't heard before.

"Back it is then," he said, turning slightly so that the lad could scramble up into place.

Then he stood up slowly, hands caught under the boy's legs to hold him in place. As he did so, Icarus swooped in on Pythagoras and lifted the other child up onto his shoulders.

They set off down the path towards the _Argo_. As Hercules had said, it was a long way from the palace to the beach. Nevertheless, he found himself smiling indulgently at the bright chatter of the two children as they pointed things out to each other and the two adults, making the time seem to pass more quickly. It would be a relief to be back on the ship though. After all, the quicker they got there, the quicker they could see about getting Pythagoras and Jason back to normal.

When they were about halfway there, they stopped to give Hercules and Icarus chance to get their breath; the two boys might not be all that heavy but it was still a long way to carry them. As soon as he was put down in the scrubby grass at the side of the path, Pythagoras went to examine something with Jason in tow. They were still in sight though, so Hercules wasn't too worried.

After a moment, he became aware that Icarus was directing a troubled look at the two boys.

"What's wrong?" the burly wrestler demanded.

"It's probably nothing," Icarus replied. "It was just something that struck me as a little odd that was all."

Hercules barked a laugh.

"Our friends have been transformed into children," he pointed out. "This whole situation is odd."

"I know that," Icarus said, rolling his eyes. "But… when we first spoke to Pythagoras after he was turned into a child, the first thing he did was to ask about his mother and brother."

"That's natural," Hercules declared. "To ask about his family. They will be the only people he really remembers after all."

"That is not what was odd," Icarus replied.

"Then what was?" Hercules demanded, beginning to lose patience.

"It would be natural for a child – for anyone really – to ask about the people who care for him; the people that he lives with; his family," Icarus went on. "So why didn't Jason?"

Hercules blinked.

"What?" he asked.

"Why didn't Jason ask about anyone?" Icarus said. "We told the boys that they were going to be staying with us for a time and he just looked resigned… like he was expecting it… and he didn't ask where any of his family were."

"Well he wouldn't ask about his mother," Hercules rumbled. "He didn't even know she was alive until a couple of months ago."

"Yes, but what about his father?" Icarus asked. "Or… even if his father was not there when he was growing up, there must have been _someone_ who raised him. Why didn't he ask about them?"

Hercules' eyes narrowed as he thought about it.

"I don't know," he answered.

He shook himself.

"Interesting as this conversation is, we ought to be getting back to the boat," he growled.

"You are right," Icarus replied. "It is probably nothing anyway."

It didn't take them long to round up the two little boys and to set off once more.

As they came through the dunes at the edge of the beach and saw _Argo_ pulled up onto the sand ahead of them both Hercules and Icarus heaved a sigh of relief. The burly wrestler hailed one of the sailors on deck and a ladder was dropped down over the side for them.

"Right," Hercules said to the two children. "Pythagoras goes up first with Icarus behind him, then Jason and I'll bring up the rear."

It wasn't all that long until they were all up on deck, the sailor who had dropped the ladder to them having lifted the children up over the rail. He looked at them curiously as he went back to his work but didn't say anything.

"Hercules?"

The burly wrestler heard Ariadne's voice behind him and resisted the urge to wince. He turned to greet his Queen with an almost manic smile, knowing that he was going to have to explain what had happened to her husband and not relishing the task.

"You are back sooner than I expected you to be," Ariadne murmured. "After you left we discovered that there is a town just beyond the dunes on the far side of the beach. Several of the crew have gone to obtain fresh supplies and Cassandra has gone with them to pray at the temple. I am afraid we were not expecting you back until nightfall or I would not have let them go. We could have set off again sooner if I had known."

"We found the ruins of the palace quicker than we thought," Hercules rumbled.

"You have the draught containing Aphrodite's tears then?" the young Queen asked.

"Yes," Hercules replied. "We do."

"But where are Jason and Pythagoras?" Ariadne asked.

She had noticed that her husband and his other best friend weren't there immediately but had presumed they were just behind Hercules in boarding the ship. Now, though, she began to worry.

"Ah," Hercules answered with a grimace. "Well it's a funny story…"

"Has something happened to them?" Ariadne asked, her voice growing increasingly concerned.

She spotted the two little boys standing behind Hercules.

"And who are these children?" she said. "You cannot simply bring random children along with us. They probably have families who are worrying about them. What were you thinking of?"

She looked again at the boys, noting that they were wearing what appeared to be Jason and Pythagoras' tunics.

"What is going on?" she demanded.

"I am afraid, My Lady, that that is a long story," Icarus murmured, "and it covers both who these children are and where Jason and Pythagoras are right now." He looked around the deck. "Perhaps we should go below," he suggested, "and we will explain everything."


	3. Nobody's Father

All in all, Hercules thought Ariadne had taken the news rather well. True, she kept throwing hard looks in his direction, but once she had been convinced that they were telling the truth about Jason and Pythagoras being turned into children, she had swooped into action. Before any of them had really known what was going on, she had the two little boys sitting at the table and eating some cakes (although Hercules wasn't entirely sure where she had managed to rustle up cakes from).

Now she was sitting at the table, listening intently to Pythagoras wittering on about something or other while they were waiting for Cassandra to come back from the local town. Jason had once again retreated into silence nibbling on the cake that Ariadne had handed him and watching the beautiful girl with huge eyes. Hercules couldn't help noticing he had cake crumbs around his mouth and, as the big man watched, he kept sniffing.

Hercules rolled his eyes and grabbed a cloth from the table, descending on the boy and holding the cloth in front of his nose.

"Blow," he instructed firmly.

Jason obliged him.

Hercules took the opportunity to wipe the child's sticky face and hands at the same time and turned back away from the table to find Icarus watching him with an amused expression.

"What?" the burly wrestler demanded.

"You do know that you make a good father, don't you?" Icarus murmured.

"Don't be ridiculous," Hercules scoffed. "I am not anyone's father. I've always been careful about that."

Before either of them could say any more though, Cassandra entered the room. She looked from Hercules to the two little boys and back again.

"You touched something when I warned you not to," she said flatly.

"What makes you think it was me?" Hercules protested.

Cassandra raised her eyebrows and stared at him. For a moment she looked so much like the old Oracle that Hercules nearly shuddered.

_She's a seer_ , he reminded himself. _Of course she knows the truth_.

He looked across the room and saw the two little boys watching the conversation curiously. Without even really thinking about it, he reached into a pouch at his belt and withdrew an elderly set of knucklebones. He turned to the boys with a smile.

"Why don't you go out in the fresh air and play with these?" he asked. "You don't want to be cooped up in here with a load of dull adults."

Jason frowned.

"What are they?" he asked.

"Knucklebones of course," Pythagoras replied before Hercules could speak.

"Do _you_ know how to play with them?" the bulky wrestler asked the blonde child.

"Of course," Pythagoras answered. "I have tried teaching Arcas but he is too little. He cannot seem to learn."

"Well how about you teach Jason the game then?" Hercules rumbled. "Go on. Go out and play."

Once the boys had left the cabin, he turned back to the other adults in the room.

"What do we do now?" Ariadne asked Cassandra, getting straight to the point. "They cannot stay like this. There must be a way to help them."

Cassandra blinked owlishly at her but did not speak. Instead she fetched a metal bowl and set it on the floor, filling it with water from a large jug. She knelt in front of it and began to pray, crushing petals that she withdrew from a bag into the water; focussing her vision. Her eyes became distant and her whole body began to shake as she stared into the water.

"What is it?" Icarus asked her. "What do you see? Is there a way to return Pythagoras and Jason to normal?"

"You have offended Aphrodite and it is to her that you must make amends," Cassandra said. "You must journey to Palea Paphos; to the Sanctuary of Aphrodite on Cyprus. There, near where the Goddess arose from the waves, you must go to the grove and make your offering at the altar. Only then will Aphrodite consent to remove her curse."

"Cyprus," Ariadne said, glaring at Hercules. "Which is in the opposite direction to Colchis from where we are right now and will take us weeks to get to." She shook her head in annoyance.

"So we head to Cyprus then," Icarus murmured.

"It would seem so," Ariadne retorted. "But there are things we must do first."

She marched into the room that she shared with Jason and came back bearing a couple of blankets, some shears and a needle and thread. Over the couple of months they had lived in the forest together, Hercules had learned that the young Queen was surprisingly adept at sewing and now she began to cut out the blankets and join the pieces that she cut together with small even stitches.

"What are you doing?" the burly wrestler asked.

"Neither of them can go around for weeks wearing only an adult sized tunic," Ariadne declared. "And you," she added, pointing the shears at Hercules almost aggressively, "are going to go to the market in the town just over those dunes first thing in the morning and buy them some shoes that fit." She paused. "Actually," she added, "I think that I will go with you. If I left you to your own devices you would probably forget what you had gone there to buy and spend all the money on pies!"

Hercules felt that was distinctly unfair but it didn't seem worth antagonising Ariadne any further by arguing. He did, however, clear his throat, knowing that what he was about to say would probably upset both the young Queen and Icarus.

"I was thinking about sleeping arrangements," he muttered. "I think that both the boys will need to share my room."

"What?" Icarus demanded.

"No!" Ariadne exclaimed at the same time. "Jason is _my husband_."

"Exactly," Hercules growled. He held up one meaty hand to forestall any further protests. "Just think about it," he said to Ariadne. "On any normal day Jason _is_ your husband, but right now he's only about eight years old. He doesn't need a wife at the moment, he needs a mother… and if you step into that role, what do you think it will be like when he returns to his proper age?" He looked at Icarus. "And that goes for both of you," he added. "I know how much Pythagoras loves you… what he feels for you… and I would bet that you feel the same way about him. You cannot be his parent if you want to go back to being his lover when everything gets back to normal."

Icarus grimaced and turned to Ariadne.

"Much as I hate to admit it, he is right," he murmured.

Ariadne looked at him steadily.

"I know," she stated. "But that does not mean I have to like it." She turned to look thoughtfully at the doors to both the room she normally shared with Jason and Hercules' smaller quarters. "You will use our room until this curse has been lifted," she decided. "I can sleep in your room well enough." She raised an eyebrow at Hercules. "I will not have any argument on this."

"And you won't get one," Hercules replied. "We may not like what has happened, but it has happened. So let's just make the best of it and work at getting those boys back to normal as soon as possible."

* * *

The agora was hot and dusty. Hercules had to admit that shopping with young children was not the most pleasant experience he had ever had. Both boys were quite obviously bored and between Pythagoras' incessant curiosity and Jason dragging his feet and sighing loudly, their large friend was about ready to tear what little was left of his hair out.

Unfortunately, Ariadne showed no signs of cutting her shopping expedition short so he was stuck, trailing after her with the two children in tow. They hadn't actually found any shoes that would fit either child yet and Ariadne had proclaimed that a pair that 'almost fit' were just not good enough. There was no shoemaker in town, they had been told, so they were stuck moving from stall to stall in the hope that someone would have what they needed.

"Hercules?" Pythagoras said as they walked past stalls selling bread and cheese and all the other staples of life.

"Yes?" Hercules replied.

"Where are we going when we leave here?"

Hercules smiled indulgently.

"We are going to Cyprus," he told the little blonde.

Pythagoras' blue eyes grew huge.

"Cyprus?" he squeaked. "Cyprus is a long way from Samos… Is it very big there? Biton, the son of Crattipus, the merchant who lives in the big house in my village, said that his father once went as far as Lesbos and it was _huge_. Is Cyprus as big as Lesbos?"

"Bigger I am told," Hercules replied absently, still looking at the different stalls to try to find the shoes they needed to buy.

"Bigger?" Pythagoras said, his eyes growing even larger. "And we are going there? I will have such an adventure to tell everyone about when I get back to Samos. Why are we going to Cyprus? Is there something there that you need?"

"Yes," Hercules answered. "There is something that we need to do there."

"And will we be going back to Samos after that?" Pythagoras asked.

"Mmm," Hercules replied, not actually wanting to lie to the child but not wanting to upset him either.

Ariadne had forged ahead of them while they were talking. Now she came back with a determined expression.

"Come along," she said. "I have been speaking with a stallholder around the corner and he believes he has just the thing we are looking for." She peered around Hercules with a frown. "Where is Jason?" she asked.

Hercules felt his blood run cold. He turned around in a circle, eyes desperately scanning the marketplace they were in. Finally, he saw his other small charge not all that far from where they were standing, but what Jason was about to do frightened him even more. The boy was staring at a sleeping two-headed lizard with wonder written on his face and was reaching out to pet it. Hercules raced across the agora faster than he would have believed he could move and grabbed the child's hand back from where it was about to touch one of the heads.

"What in the name of the Gods do you think you are doing?" he yelled at Jason. "Don't you have any idea how dangerous that thing is? It is a hydra! It could have your hand off."

He dragged Jason back beyond the range of the lizard and put both hands firmly on the boy's shoulders.

"And don't you remember what I said to you yesterday about running off?" he demanded, giving the child a small shake. "Do you have any idea how frightened I was when I saw you near that thing? And in this marketplace you could easily have been lost."

His heart softened as he saw tears welling up in the little boy's eyes and he crouched down next to Jason and wrapped his arms around him.

"It's alright," he rumbled, far more gently than before. "I didn't mean to shout… but you frightened me. You need to stay close to me. I do not want to lose you."

Jason nodded, biting his lip.

"I'm sorry," he said in a small voice. "I didn't mean to wander off. I stopped to look and then you were all gone."

"It's over now," Hercules replied. "But you must stay with me… even if you do see something that you want to look at. All you have to do is ask if you want to stop to look at something."

"What _was_ that thing?" Jason asked. "It had two heads."

"Of course it did," Hercules answered. "It was a hydra." He pulled back and looked at Jason with a frown. "Haven't you ever seen a hydra before?"

The brunette child shook his head.

"No," he said. "It looked like something out of one of my story books."

Hercules' frown deepened. Surely a hydra wasn't that unusual that the child would never have seen one before? He had sometimes speculated in the past that, since he apparently knew so little about everyday life, Jason must have been raised by a hermit that couldn't speak, but now he wondered anew: just where _had_ the boy grown up?

"Can I ask you something?" Jason murmured hesitantly, as they move back across the agora to re-join Ariadne and Pythagoras, his hand now firmly clasped in Hercules'.

"Yes," Hercules replied.

"Is your name really Hercules?"

The burly wrestler frowned deeply.

"Of course it is," he responded. "Why?"

"Because there's a Hercules in a film I watched and in some of my books but he's not like you," Jason replied innocently. "He's a hero and he's really, really strong and brave. He's like the son of this God… and he's really young and good looking."

Hercules' frown deepened. He didn't know what a film was but the rest of Jason's meaning had come through clearly enough.

"Well I may not be the Hercules that you have read about but I am called Hercules," he said, "and there _are_ those who tell stories of my exploits and call me a hero."

"Okay," Jason answered. "I was just wondering."

By the time they had finished with the stallholder that Ariadne was talking about, both boys had shoes that fit them. The clothes she had sewn for them from the cut up blankets fitted them well enough (especially remarkable considering she hadn't really stopped to measure either boy properly), helped by the belts Hercules had made from some strips of plaited leather he had pinched from one of the crew and tied around their waists.

Now that their main purpose for being in the market was done, Ariadne relaxed and smiled at Hercules.

"I was thinking that we might look for some things to keep these two entertained on the journey," she said softly, "and perhaps for a small treat."

Hercules raised an eyebrow.

"Can we afford it?" he murmured.

It was a valid question. They did not, after all, have a great deal of money with them on the voyage – although Pythagoras had been able to earn a little (or at least get paid in goods) by providing medical aid to some of the more remote settlements they had arrived at and Ariadne had sold a lot of the jewellery she had been wearing when they had fled Atlantis quite early on. Add to that a few mercenary or guarding jobs that Jason had taken on for a variety of people they had come across, and they were surviving with a little left over for emergencies.

"It is not a problem," Ariadne replied. "Our funds are not low and I was not thinking of anything too extravagant."

By the time they returned to the boat, Hercules was carrying a basket containing parchment, ink and several styli, wax tablets, a counting board and a ruler. There was also a new set of knucklebones and some spheria (which Jason kept inexplicably referring to as 'marbles') and a pente grammai board made of terracotta. Hercules noted with a smile that they were all things that could continue to be used after the boys were returned to their usual ages. It appeared that Ariadne was far more practical than he would have given her credit for being.

Back in the central room on the ship, he watched the young Queen sitting with the two boys and teaching them to play pente grammai (something he was a little surprised that Pythagoras didn't already know). Ariadne would make a good mother someday, he decided. He poured himself a cup of wine and thought back over the trip to the market with a sigh. Somehow he suspected this was going to be a long journey.

* * *

It had already been a trying morning and it wasn't actually that long after breakfast. To be fair, Hercules was not at his best in the morning on any usual day and had perhaps consumed a little more wine than he had been intending to last night. Did that mean, though, that the children had to be extra noisy? They could have had a bit more consideration for his sore head after all.

As it was, so far he had fielded a long list of questions from the ever curious Pythagoras (and how was Hercules supposed to know why the sky was blue and what a siren ate for breakfast?) and broken up an impromptu game of something that Jason called 'tag', which as far as Hercules could see was a simplified version of ostrakinda (but without the team element) and involved an inordinate amount of shouting and running around (which certainly shouldn't have been happening indoors).

He had chased the boys out onto deck to get some fresh air at that point.

At least the crew had accepted what had happened and seemed willing to keep an eye on the children when they were up on deck. It gave Hercules a well-earned respite from their apparently boundless energy.

As if thinking about them had summoned them though, Pythagoras bounced into the room followed by his slightly smaller friend.

"Hercules. Hercules… Come and see. Come and see," he said urgently.

"What is it?" Hercules growled, disgruntled that his peace had been disrupted again so soon.

"I saw a mermaid!" Pythagoras declared, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Jason thought it was a dolphin but I know it was a mermaid."

"It _was_ a dolphin," Jason protested to no-one in particular. "There's no such thing as a mermaid anyway."

"There is too!" Pythagoras rounded on his friend. "There are lots of stories and lots of people have seen them."

"Have you ever seen a mermaid?" Jason asked Hercules curiously.

"No," Hercules admitted. "But that does not mean that they do not exist," he added seeing Pythagoras' crestfallen look. "I have seen many strange things and heard many strange tales over the years… and I have seen creatures that no-one believed existed standing there as large as life."

"Like what?" Jason asked.

"Well," Hercules replied with a grin. "I have seen a Kynikos… one of the hounds who protect the Goddess Hekate." He knew that there was no chance of either boy remembering the 'rabid dog incident' as they had come to call it, given that they seemed to have no real tangible memories of their adult lives at all.

"Really?" Jason said sceptically, frowning as though he thought Hercules was laughing at him.

"Really," Hercules confirmed. "And my father plucked a tooth from the foaming jaws of Cerberus himself; the beast who guards the underworld. He used to tell me the story of how he came to face that monster when I was no older than you are."

"Maybe he was making it up," Jason suggested.

"Well if he was making it up, where did this come from?" Hercules asked, producing a giant tooth from the pouch on his belt. Jason had recovered the trinket for him from Circe when he had made his deal with her and Hercules had carried it with him ever since, unwilling to let it out of his sight again.

The child's eyes grew huge and he reached out to touch the tooth gently.

"How did he do it?" he asked.

Hercules smiled and put the tooth back into the pouch, carefully pulling the strings closed and tying them securely.

"Would you like me to tell you the story?" he rumbled.

Jason nodded eagerly.

"Well, how about I tell you before bed tonight?" Hercules asked. "Give you something to look forwards to."

Jason nodded again.

"Yes please," he said quietly.

Hercules patted the boy on the shoulder. He had noticed over the past few days, that neither child really asked for anything for themselves but would be almost disturbingly grateful if you offered them anything. It made him a little sad.

"Right," he said. "We'll do that later then. Now let's go and look at Pythagoras' mermaid."

* * *

Supper was some kind of stew. Jason peered at it suspiciously and poked at it with his spoon. He wasn't entirely sure what was in it but it didn't taste like the food from back home; none of the food here did. These people didn't seem to eat potatoes for a start and some of their meat tasted funny (Hercules had told him it was goat. Jason wished he hadn't asked).

"Don't you like it?" Ariadne asked gently.

Jason ducked his head and tried to avoid the scrutiny of the adults in the room.

"It's nice," he said, quickly swallowing a mouthful.

It didn't taste too bad, he decided, and at least taking a mouthful had made Ariadne smile. He liked making her smile. She was very pretty and seemed very kind. In fact, so far everyone here had been very kind (even if he still wasn't entirely sure where 'here' was) and he really didn't want to screw things up and risk being sent back; he'd been sent back too many times already.

He ate what he could manage and sat back quietly, legs swinging where they didn't reach the floor, and let the conversation flow around him. It was nice and he was rapidly becoming attached to these people – even if there was still a chance that they wouldn't want to keep him forever.

Finally supper was over and everyone dispersed to their early evening tasks. Hercules poured himself a cup of wine and sat back, watching the two boys without either of them being aware of it. He could see that Ariadne was doing the same while sewing. It was interesting that right from the start neither of the children had attempted to go out after dark and had (by and large) accepted it whenever Hercules had decreed that it was time to go to bed. One or the other of them might occasionally try to bargain for a later bedtime but once the burly wrestler indicated that this was not a matter for discussion, they generally gave up pretty quickly.

Right now, they were both settled at the table quietly. On other evenings they had played pente grammai or knucklebones at the table, but tonight they both seemed engrossed in individual activities that involved pieces of parchment and, in Pythagoras' case, the counting board. It was interesting, actually, seeing their basic personality traits that had clearly carried through to adulthood coming out in them as children.

There _were_ differences though. This version of Pythagoras was far more carefree than his adult counterpart (something that Hercules was inordinately grateful for) even if he did still have an odd fascination with mathematics and a burning desire for knowledge; Jason, on the other hand, seemed a lot more sensitive – quieter somehow – although Hercules was beginning to wonder just how much of his normal adult behaviour was an act; a protective shell that he hid behind.

Wondering exactly what his young charges were doing, Hercules carefully put down his wine and quietly stepped over to them.

As he had expected from the presence of the counting board, Pythagoras appeared to be doing something mathematical – although the calculations he was attempting seemed far too complicated for a child his age. As Hercules came close, he looked up with a bright and enthusiastic smile. Hercules was suddenly very much afraid that he intended to launch into a discussion about mathematics – far from his favourite subject. In desperation, he turned to look at Jason.

Jason, Hercules noticed with a frown, had apparently acquired a small piece of charcoal from somewhere. The burly wrestler suspected that he had been given it by one of the crew – the usually hard-bitten sailors seemed to dote on both boys after all. He had his head down and his free arm wrapped protectively around the parchment he was working on, obscuring it from view, as he made quick strokes with the charcoal. He appeared to be completely oblivious to the fact that Hercules had drawn near, and also to his blackened fingers and the dark smudge along one cheekbone. Hercules couldn't help grinning at the sight.

"What are you up to?" he asked softly.

Jason visibly jumped. He raised his head to turn startled eyes on Hercules.

"Nothing," he said anxiously. "I wasn't doing anything wrong."

Hercules frowned at the child's reaction.

"I didn't say you were doing anything wrong," he pointed out gently, drawing a stool over and sitting down on it so that he wasn't looming over the boys. "I was just interested."

"He was drawing," Pythagoras piped up. "He keeps drawing. Acaeus gave him some charcoal to draw with."

Hercules raised an eyebrow in surprise. Acaeus was the helmsman on the _Argo_ and was generally a sour man with little time for anyone.

"What were you drawing?" he asked.

Jason bit his lip.

"Nothing much," he mumbled.

"Can I see?" Hercules requested.

Jason turned the parchment over and shook his head, not quite looking at the burly wrestler. Out of the corner of his eye, Hercules could see Ariadne watching the situation with a frown marring her beautiful features.

"It's alright," he said kindly. "It is not a problem."

He looked at the two children critically, taking in Pythagoras' ink-stained fingers and the fact that Jason seemed to have covered himself in charcoal with a rueful smile.

"It's bedtime," he announced. "Go on. Go and wash your faces and hands… properly mind… and I'll tell you the story of my Father and Cerberus like I promised to."

Both Jason and Pythagoras scrambled to get up from the table and do what Hercules had asked. At the door though, Jason hesitated and looked back at the piece of parchment he had left turned over on the table. Hercules followed his eyes and smiled.

"No one will look if you don't want them to, I promise," he said. "Tell you what, let's fold this up and put it in the chest over there where it will be safe, alright?"

Jason smiled and nodded eagerly. Hercules returned his smile. He picked up the drawing without looking at it and put it in the chest as he had suggested.

"Go on now, Trouble," he said softly.

By the time he and Ariadne had tidied up a little – putting away all the things the boys had been using – and he had made his way into the bedroom, the two children had washed themselves and got into bed, where they were eagerly awaiting Hercules' arrival. Hercules smiled broadly and got onto the bed, allowing the children to snuggle in on either side.

"Now," he rumbled. "Where should I begin?"

"At the beginning," Pythagoras giggled.

"Of course," Hercules replied. "Cerberus is the beast that guards the entrance to Hades, the underworld. He is a giant dog with three heads and each head has vicious, foaming jaws and sharp teeth…"

Back out in the main room, Icarus had returned from a short walk on the shore where they had beached. He sat and chatted to Ariadne for a while until Cassandra joined them, fresh from her religious observances.

"Hercules is taking his time tonight," Icarus mentioned.

"He was going to tell them a story," Ariadne replied. She looked at the door to the bedroom. "He is very good with them," she added with a sigh. "It is a shame that he and Medusa were not together for long enough to have children. He would have made a good father."

"I didn't know Medusa," Icarus admitted. "What was she like?"

Ariadne grimaced.

"I have to admit that I did not really know her properly myself," she answered. "She worked in the Palace kitchens and our paths rarely crossed. I knew her through Jason and through Korinna, my maid, that is all. Everything Hercules and Pythagoras have said about her… I wish I had known her better. I think I would have liked her. She gave her life for mine and it seems… wrong that I did not know her as well as I would have liked."

They lapsed into silence for a moment, each caught up in silent regrets about what had happened since Pasiphae had stolen the throne. Presently, Icarus roused himself.

"I will just go and check that Hercules is alright," he said.

He moved across the room and opened the door to the chamber that Hercules was sharing with the two boys. In the doorway, he stopped and smiled warmly.

Hercules was fast asleep on the bed with the two children nestled into his sides. Icarus shook his head fondly and slipped into the room on silent feet. He carefully shook out a blanket he found on top of a low chest and gently draped it over the slumbering wrestler and the boys. Then he turned and left the room, pulling the door closed as quietly as he could and leaving Hercules and his charges to sleep undisturbed.


	4. Paints and Board Games

It was far too early in the morning to be up and around out of choice, Hercules decided morosely as he trudged through the dusty streets of a marketplace in a town whose name he didn't even know. He had been roused from bed at an ungodly hour by an overly enthusiastic Pythagoras who had been sent to get him up by Ariadne. Hercules was seriously beginning to think that the Queen had a thoroughly evil streak for employing such an underhand trick to get him out of bed.

Once he had managed to stumble out of the bedroom, brain still fuzzy from sleep, he had been met by Ariadne, who had told him that she felt it would be a good idea for someone to go to the local market to replenish their supplies before they set off again and informed him in no uncertain terms that, as everyone else had other jobs to attend to, he had been nominated to do it.

So here he was, still grumpy at being woken up so early, plodding around the market at the Queen's behest. He'd finished sorting out fresh supplies for the _Argo_ fairly quickly actually, and hopefully the stallholders he had dealt with were even now packing up the goods and arranging for them to be delivered to the ship. So here he was with some time to kill before he had to head back to accompany the goods back to the boat.

What should he do with his time? Hercules reached into his money pouch and withdrew the handful of coins he found there – his own money (left over from one of the jobs they had taken on to raise a few funds) not part of the shared purse he had been sent out with this morning. There was more than enough for a decent sized pie and a few flagons of wine, Hercules realised with pleasure.

The two boys were still on the ship, under the watchful eyes of Acaeus. They had been playing with the spheria Ariadne had bought when Hercules had left them, so deeply engrossed in their game that they had not seen him go. Hercules was glad of the respite, although he felt more than a little guilty for thinking it.

He headed off across the market in search of a stall selling pies. There was bound to be one around here somewhere after all. As he passed one stall, however, his eye was drawn to a series of small pots of pigment in various colours. He hesitated. Pythagoras had been right the other night: Jason did keep drawing. Hercules had watched both boys over the past few days and had spotted the child with that bit of charcoal and a piece of parchment on multiple occasions – although he never seemed to let anyone see what he was drawing. Perhaps he might like to add colour to his pictures?

Hercules shook himself and started to move on. What was he thinking really? After all both boys would hopefully be returned to their adult selves before much longer, so what was the good of spoiling them now?

As he went to step away from the stall, however, his eye was caught by a game board behind the paints. If Hercules wasn't mistaken it was a board for playing diagramismos. He was sure he had heard Pythagoras enthusiastically describing the game to Jason one night over supper back in their small house in Atlantis (before Pasiphae had been exiled and Minos had died and the world had gone mad). As far as Hercules could remember, the young mathematician had declared a liking for it.

He mentally shook himself again. This was ridiculous. There was a flagon of wine somewhere in this town calling his name after all.

"How much for the game board and the paints?" he found himself asking. "And I'll need a brush too," he added.

The figure that the stallholder named nearly made him wince. It would take nearly all his money to purchase the items and he really had wanted a pie; just thinking about it made him start to salivate. He grimaced and handed the money over before he could change his mind, waiting while the stallholder wrapped the game and the painting set neatly in a cloth bundle.

He walked away with the bundle tucked under his arm, shaking his head at his own behaviour. Yet the thought of the surprise and pleasure he would see on his boys' faces made it all worth it. With a smile that he wasn't even aware of, Hercules set off to the place where he had agreed to meet the carriers to escort them and the supplies back to the ship.

* * *

"You are making that up."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not."

"Mother has always told me that it is wrong to tell lies!"

"I'm not lying."

"You are."

"I'm not!"

Hercules walked into the room and nearly walked straight back out again. He had known that sooner or later the boys were bound to argue about something; in his experience (which admittedly wasn't that much) children always bickered about something sooner or later. He'd have been happy for it to be later though; to avoid any argument that he might be called upon to break up.

It was too late to make his escape now though. Pythagoras had spotted him and rushed over, scowling.

"Hercules, Jason is telling lies," he announced.

"I'm not!" Jason protested loudly, trotting over equally quickly with a dark scowl on his face.

"He said…"

"I wasn't lying…"

Both boys tried to speak at the same time (well, yell would be closer to the truth than speak). Hercules held up one hand to stop them both.

"One at a time," he growled. "Pythagoras, what is the problem?"

"Jason was making things up," Pythagoras said crossly. "He told me that where he comes from they have boxes with pictures that move that he calls a 'te-llie', and carts that are not pulled by horses or oxen called a 'karr'… and there is no such thing. So I told him to stop making it up but he wouldn't stop… my Mother always told me that it is wrong to tell lies. It is wrong, isn't it Hercules?"

Hercules raised an eyebrow and looked at Jason.

"Now you," he said.

Jason bit his lip.

"Pythagoras asked about what it was like where I came from and I told him and he said I was lying… but I wasn't."

"He was!" Pythagoras burst out. "He said that where he comes from is called In-ger-land… but Crattipus the merchant's son Biton was learning all about geography from his father and he was teaching me and there is no such place in the whole of Hellas."

"Did you ever think that perhaps this In-ger-land is not in Hellas?" Hercules rumbled.

"Do you mean it is in _Persia_?" Pythagoras sounded horrified. "He is _Persian_." He stared at Jason and sidestepped away from him.

"I'm not a cat!" Jason objected loudly.

Both Hercules and Pythagoras stared at him for a moment, clearly nonplussed by the apparently random statement.

"I didn't precisely mean Persia," Hercules said, choosing to ignore Jason's comment. "There are many places that are not in Hellas but are also not in Persia." He looked sternly at the two children. "Now you two are both big boys of eight so I expect you to sort out your differences."

"He's not eight," Pythagoras snorted. "He's only seven. He's just a baby."

Hercules looked at Jason in surprise. Somehow he had always assumed that Jason was older than Pythagoras.

Jason went white and then red.

"You promised you wouldn't tell," he yelled at Pythagoras. "You promised."

He reached out and smacked Pythagoras hard across the cheek and then turned and ran out of the room towards the deck before Hercules could stop him.

Hercules stared at the door open mouthed before turning back as Pythagoras began to sniffle. He held his arms out to the child and wrapped them around Pythagoras as he ran into them. For a moment they stood there with Hercules rubbing the young boy's back to try to comfort him.

"What's wrong?" Icarus sounded confused and concerned.

Both Pythagoras and Hercules jumped slightly and looked up in surprise. Neither of them had heard Icarus come in.

"Jason hit me," Pythagoras answered, still sniffling.

"He did what?" Icarus demanded.

Hercules couldn't help but see the way the young man's eyes hardened angrily. Given the relationship between Icarus and the adult Pythagoras, he supposed he could understand it.

"The boys had a bit of an argument," the burly wrestler said.

He sat down so that he was more at Pythagoras' level and pulled the child onto his lap.

"I'm not saying Jason was right to hit you, because he wasn't… but you weren't being overly kind to him, were you?" he said seriously. "You kept on calling him a liar for a start."

"But he was making things up," Pythagoras protested miserably. "The things he was telling me about do not exist. He was making fun of me."

And that was what was at the heart of their argument, Hercules suspected. He hesitated for a moment, working out what he was going to say to try to put matters right. This was usually more Pythagoras' forte than his; his old friend was a born peacemaker – or at least he was when he was in his adult form.

"Now I am pretty sure that Jason comes from somewhere that is a very long way from here… this In-ger-land that he was talking about," Hercules rumbled. "And maybe they _do_ have the things he was talking about there even though we have never heard of them here… or maybe, just maybe, it's just the way Jason describes things that is different. Did you ever think of that? After all, he refers to spheria as 'marbles' and ostrakinda as 'tag', so you know he has a strange way of putting things."

Pythagoras frowned, still snuggling in to Hercules.

"Maybe," he said dubiously.

"This 'horseless cart' might be pulled by slaves for all we know… and the box with moving pictures might be some kind of theatre," Hercules continued. "And how do you think it made Jason feel to have you saying he was lying? How would you have felt?"

"Sad," Pythagoras answered. "And angry... but I did not mean to make Jason sad or angry, Hercules." He sounded more than a little distressed.

"I know, Hercules replied comfortingly. "You are too kind a boy for that. You are one of the kindest people I have ever met. You just lost your temper just like Jason did and it made you say some things you did not really mean. Calling Jason a baby wasn't nice though… and it isn't true… and if you made a promise you shouldn't have broken it."

"I need to say I am sorry," Pythagoras said softly.

"Yes," Hercules agreed. "But so does Jason. No matter what you said there's still no excuse for him smacking you." He looked at Pythagoras seriously. "Now do you think you will be alright here with Icarus if I go to find Jason?"

"Yes," Pythagoras answered. "Do you think Icarus knows how to play diagramismos?" he asked hopefully.

Hercules grinned. The boy had been almost obsessed by the game ever since the burly wrestler had brought it back from the market.

"I'm sure that if he doesn't you can teach him," he rumbled, setting Pythagoras back onto his feet and sending him off to play with Icarus.

The sea air was definitely bracing as Hercules made his way up onto deck. He paused for a moment, thinking. Where would he find Jason? The _Argo_ wasn't all that big (although she was definitely the largest ship Hercules had ever been on) and there really shouldn't be all that many places he could be, but both boys had shown a definite skill for finding little hidey holes and squeezing themselves into them.

"Hey," a gruff voice called.

Hercules turned to face Acaeus.

"He's over there," the surly helmsman growled, gesturing with his head towards the side rail.

Hercules heaved a sigh of relief; Jason had shown a worrying propensity for wanting to climb everything (which Hercules supposed he shouldn't have been surprised about given his adult behaviour) and twice now had been dragged back down from halfway up the main mast to face his angry and worried guardian (because that was what Hercules supposed he was to the two boys at the moment). He had half thought that Jason might have tried for a third time now.

Instead, he could just make out the shape of the boy, sitting in the shadows, tucked up against the side of the ship, curled into a ball with his arms around his legs and his face buried in his knees. Hercules walked purposefully over to him and sat down with a grunt, carefully slipping one arm around the boy's thin shoulders. For a moment he felt the child resist his attempts to offer comfort. Then Jason gave in; all but hurling himself into his larger companion's arms.

"I'm sorry," the boy said, almost inaudibly. "I didn't mean it."

"I know," Hercules rumbled, "and I understand… but you still shouldn't have hit him."

Jason sniffed wetly.

Hercules rolled his eyes and grabbed a cloth from the top of a nearby stack of crates and held it out for the boy to blow his nose into.

"Better now?" he asked.

The child nodded against Hercules' broad chest.

"Am I in trouble?" he asked, his voice small and sad.

"No more than Pythagoras is," Hercules said gently. "You were both in the wrong and I have already spoken to him. He should not have said what he did to you but he thought you were teasing him; making up things that were not real to make fun of him."

"I wasn't, Hercules," Jason said sadly. "I really wasn't."

"I know that," Hercules answered. "I know you wouldn't do that to him… and Pythagoras knows it too. He lost his temper and so did you." He pushed the boy back a little so that he could look him in the face. "Hitting Pythagoras was a bad thing to do though… you do realise that, don't you?"

Jason sniffled faintly.

"It was naughty," he replied quietly. "I was naughty."

He looked appealingly at Hercules. If Jason's 'puppy dog' eyes were devastating as an adult, they were doubly so as a child, Hercules noted clinically – even as he felt his heart melting at the sight.

"Please don't send me back," Jason implored. "I am sorry… and I don't want to leave."

Hercules frowned deeply, trying to work out what was going through the child's head.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded.

Jason shook his head but didn't reply audibly. He brought his hand up to his mouth and started to bite the side of his forefinger.

Hercules' frown deepened. He reached out and removed the boy's hand from his mouth.

"Don't do that," he admonished gently. "You'll hurt yourself."

Jason bit his lip and looked down.

"Once you have apologised to Pythagoras it will all be over," Hercules continued. "Forgiven and forgotten." He placed two fingers under the boy's chin and tilted his head back up. "Will you tell me something though?"

"What?" Jason asked.

"Why you didn't want me to know that you were seven and not eight?" Hercules rumbled. "Why was it so important that Pythagoras had to promise not to say anything?"

Jason sighed against him.

"You were happy thinking I was eight," he mumbled. "And I thought that if I was littler than you thought maybe you wouldn't want me anymore; that you'd send me away." He looked up at Hercules pleadingly. "And I'm nearly eight… I promise I am. It's just a few more months."

Hercules pulled the boy a little more tightly into his arms.

"I don't care if you are seven or forty-seven," he said firmly. "You are one of the people I care about most in this world and I do not want you to be anywhere but here… and there are other people here who feel just as strongly. Ariadne would gut me like a fish if I even thought of sending you away anywhere so you can get those thoughts out of your head right now."

"But you keep calling me 'trouble'," Jason almost whispered. "I don't mean to be trouble Hercules. I know I'm bad but I don't mean to be."

Hercules' arms tightened even more around the child.

"You are _not_ bad," he growled. "I don't know who's told you that you are but they're wrong. You're a good boy… and as for calling you 'trouble'… well I never meant it seriously. It was just a nickname because I am fond of you… but if you don't like it then I won't call you it any more."

Jason offered him a shy smile.

"You can call me 'trouble' if you like," he said quietly. "I don't mind. It's sort of nice to have a name that's just mine and that only you call me."

Hercules smiled back at the lad, enjoying having a little one to one time with one of his boys. After a while though, he shook himself – they really did need to go and find Pythagoras so that things could be put right between the children.

He stood up and swung the child up into his arms, draping him over one shoulder and spinning in a circle until he heard Jason giggle.

"Come on," he said fondly, dropping the boy down to stand on his own feet and taking his hand. "Let's go and see Pythagoras and the two of you can make friends again."

* * *

Ariadne wandered back into the main cabin without any real purpose in mind. They were still several days away from landing in Cyprus and had been back at sea for nearly a week. Because there really were only so many places you could go on a ship, they were pretty much all in one another's company constantly and beginning to get on each other's nerves. A sort of universal irritation seemed to pervade the _Argo_ and Ariadne had found herself growing increasingly waspish and snappy over the last couple of days. The only ones who seemed immune to the bad mood were the two children who, apart from the occasional small squabble, were both sunny natured enough to be largely oblivious to the bad mood of the adults.

Ariadne wished she could be a little more like that to be honest. As it was, if she heard Hercules belch one more time, or Cassandra make one more vague pronouncement, or if the master of the ship tried to tell her pessimistically about the potential for sprung seams, she thought she might scream.

So she was making a concerted effort to avoid most of her companions this afternoon, feeling that she would not be particularly good company for anyone. The only problem with that was that now she was bored. She stepped into the cabin feeling decidedly grumpy.

For a moment she thought she was alone in the room. Then she spotted Jason at the table, head bent over a piece of parchment he was working on, small pots of pigment and a bowl of water laid out before him. He seemed to be drawing again – something that he clearly enjoyed and did whenever he got the chance. Where Pythagoras was, Ariadne didn't know; she presumed the little blonde was outside enjoying the bright sunshine and was a little surprised that his dark-haired friend wasn't with him.

She hadn't really spent much time with Jason since Hercules had activated Aphrodite's curse. To be honest she wasn't entirely sure how she should behave around him. It was hard, after everything they had been through, to know that this child didn't really know who she was; didn't know what she was to him. Part of her wanted to be the one to look after him until he returned to his adult form – wanted to show him how much she loved him no matter what – but the more rational side of her realised that that would only cause more problems in the long run; would only confuse things.

As she moved past the end of the table, her dress caught against a flagon Hercules had left there, making it wobble noisily. Jason jumped and looked up at her, thoroughly startled, his hazel eyes huge.

"I'm sorry," Ariadne apologised. "I did not mean to make you jump." She gestured to the bench next to Jason. "Is it alright if I sit down?" she asked.

Jason shrugged.

"I guess so," he muttered.

As she sat down, Ariadne peered at the drawing the boy had been working on. She had to admit that for such a young child it was rather good – although it _was_ still clearly a child's drawing. It was a picture of buildings and trees, but they were not like any buildings Ariadne had ever seen.

"That is a very good picture," she said softly. "What is it of?"

Jason looked up from the picture again. He had been colouring the sun yellow, but now he carefully put his brush back into the pot of water and gave the Queen a peculiar look.

"It's home," he said as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

As he was speaking, Ariadne spotted Hercules coming into the room, obviously searching for his other young charge. The burly wrestler spotted the Queen talking to Jason and stood in the doorway, listening.

"This is your home?" Ariadne asked. "Is it a good home?"

"It's alright," Jason shrugged.

"What is this building?" Ariadne enquired pointing to a building on a hill in the background of the picture. It was grey and had a tower at one end.

"That's the church," Jason replied, giving her that peculiar look again.

"What is a church?" Ariadne asked.

Jason looked at her blankly.

"It's where people go to talk to God," he said, as though the answer should have been obvious to her.

"You mean a temple then," Ariadne replied.

"No," Jason said. "A church."

"Of course," Ariadne murmured awkwardly. "It must just be another name for it." She pointed to a large building in the foreground, much larger than the other houses in the picture. "This must be a nobleman's house," she said.

Jason shrugged again and looked down at his shoes.

"That's where _I_ live," he said.

Ariadne exchanged a surprised look with the still watching Hercules.

"Your father must be an important man," she said. "He must have plenty of money to be able to afford such a large house."

"My Dad's gone," Jason muttered, still looking down. "He went away and didn't come back. I didn't live there before he left."

Ariadne frowned.

"So whose house is it then?" she asked. "Does it belong to the person who looks after you?"

She was genuinely interested in Jason's answer. In all the time she had known him, he had never really spoken about his life before coming to Atlantis and she had to admit that any chance to learn a little more about his past intrigued her.

Jason bit his lip and shook his head.

"It's where they send children that nobody wants," he whispered. "There's lots of other children there too and you have to keep hold of your stuff so no-one nicks it."

Ariadne exchanged a startled look with Hercules. This was not what she had expected to hear.

"You don't live with your family?" she asked.

With hindsight, she knew that was probably a silly question; everything she knew about what had happened indicated that Aeson had run as far and as fast as he could from Atlantis with his infant son and it hardly seemed likely he would have stopped to find family on the way.

Jason shook his head.

"I don't have a family," he muttered. "There's Mac… but they won't let me stay with him."

"And who is Mac?" Ariadne asked gently.

"My Dad's friend," Jason answered. "He's my godfather."

Ariadne decided not to ask what a 'godfather' was.

"Do you like this Mac?" she enquired.

Jason smiled brightly at her.

"Yeah," he said enthusiastically. "He's got this really cool boat and he says that when I'm bigger he'll take me out on it. He works away a lot but when he's in town he takes me out and buys me stuff and all sorts."

"But you don't live with him."

Jason bit his lip again.

"Nah," he said. "They won't let me."

"Why?" Ariadne asked.

"Dunno," Jason answered. "Mac says he's sorry and he's tried but they won't let me stay with him. It doesn't matter… he's not home much anyway."

"And do you like living here?" Ariadne pointed to the big house in the picture.

Somehow it was important to her to know the answer to this.

Jason shrugged, playing with his necklace.

"'S'alright," he mumbled.

Ariadne glanced sadly at Hercules, reading an awful lot into that monosyllabic response.

"Jason!" Pythagoras' bright voice was more than a little breathless as he burst into the room. "Come and see! Acaeus says he is going to show me how to steer the ship and maybe let me have a go. He says he will let you try too. Come on!"

Jason looked at Ariadne for permission to leave. Ariadne tried to smile and nodded.

The little brunette grinned and raced out through the door after his blonde friend.

Hercules let out an explosive breath.

"His damned father abandoned him with no one to care for him," he growled angrily.

"I know," Ariadne replied.

"What sort of man does that?" Hercules ranted. "What sort of _father_ does that?"

"Perhaps there was a reason."

"Don't try to defend him," Hercules raged. "Aeson doesn't deserve your kindness." He looked at the door that the two boys had left through. "And the worst of it is that that boy idolises him." He shook his head despairingly. "Even now, as an adult, he idolises a man who walked away and left him with nothing."

"Hercules," Ariadne began.

"How do you do that to a child?" Hercules asked, suddenly becoming quiet and sad. "Especially one as bright and happy and loving as that one?"

"I do not know," Ariadne answered with a sigh, coming over and putting her hand on Hercules' shoulder.

The burly wrestler patted her hand and tried to smile.

"I'm alright," he said. "It's just…"

"I know," Ariadne replied.

Before either of them could say anything else a loud thud came from the deck overhead.

"Jason! No! Get down from there!" Icarus' urgent voice came wafting down to them.

Hercules rolled his eyes and turned to the doorway.

"I'd better go and see what the little bugger's climbing on now," he said. "I swear, if he's up that mast again I won't be responsible for my actions…"

With one last pat of Ariadne's hand, he hurried back up towards the deck, leaving the Queen of Atlantis alone with her thoughts.

* * *

A terrified scream ripped Hercules from a pleasant dream about Medusa. He loved those dreams when he got to be with her again, and for a few moments when he awoke in the morning he would lie there in blissful peace until the harsh reality that she was dead and gone would hit him. Despite the pain that invariably caused though, he would not exchange the dreams and the memories for anything. He had loved his beautiful girl with all his heart and dreaded the day the dreams began to fade; feared that with time he would start to forget her.

Tonight's offering had been particularly nice. They had been together on the steps of the Temple of Poseidon (as they had been on that night so long ago now when he had enchanted her with the song of the sirens – he shuddered to think of how foolish he had been back then) enjoying sweet conversation and a picnic of wine and pies that Medusa had packed for them.

Now though, he lay in the darkness in confusion, trying to work out where the scream had come from. A desolate whimpering came from the bed on the other side of the room. Hercules was up out of the makeshift bed he had made from an old mattress and several blankets and across the room in a flash.

Jason was thrashing in his sleep, whimpering desperately and crying out in fear. He woke Pythagoras with a kick, setting the little blonde off crying. Hercules swore under his breath. Behind him, the door opened and the faint light of an oil lamp appeared.

"What is going on?" Icarus sounded confused.

"Jason's having a nightmare," Hercules growled. "He kicked Pythagoras in his sleep. Can you take Pythagoras for me while I sort out Jason?"

Without waiting for an answer, he picked Pythagoras up and turned to hand him to Icarus. Icarus nodded quickly and handed the oil lamp he was carrying to Ariadne, who had also appeared to find out what all the noise was, before taking Pythagoras off Hercules and balancing the boy on his hip.

"It's alright," Icarus said comfortingly to the blonde child. "It must have been a shock waking up like that but everything is fine now." He looked at Hercules. "I will take him back to my room until everything has calmed down a little."

Hercules nodded tightly. He sat down on the side of the bed and reached out to gently shake Jason to wake him up. As his hand touched the little boy's shoulder, however, Jason jerked awake. He hurled himself into Hercules' arms, sobbing.

Hercules rocked the child back and forth in his arms, murmuring nonsense in his ear, trying to calm Jason down as best he could. The child clung to him, small frame wracked by despairing sobs.

"It was just a dream," Hercules rumbled softly. "Just a nightmare. Calm down lad. You're alright now."

Eventually the child's sobs subsided, turning into hitching breaths. He didn't stop clinging to Hercules, however, and every time the big man went to pull back to look at him, he tightened his grip on Hercules' tunic almost desperately, small face buried in Hercules' broad chest.

Hercules glanced back over his shoulder at Ariadne, still hovering uncertainly in the doorway with the lamp in her hand, wanting to help but not sure what to do. To be honest, Hercules wasn't sure what to do in this situation himself; he'd never had to handle a distraught seven-year-old just waking up from a nightmare before.

"You're fine," he murmured to the child. "Nothing is going to hurt you. I won't let it."

"I'm sorry," Jason between breaths. "I didn't want to hurt her."

"Who?" Hercules asked with a confused frown.

It was plain that the little boy was still caught up in his nightmare; mind temporarily unable to distinguish the difference between dream and reality.

"The snake lady," Jason said. "She was nice to me… even if she did have snakes on her head instead of hair. I didn't want to kill her."

Hercules felt the breath catch in the back of his throat. Behind him he heard Ariadne give a startled gasp.

"I know lad," he said soothingly. "I know you would never have wanted to hurt her."

He had been angry at Jason over Medusa's death (still harboured that anger at times although he tried to get past it) but right now, faced with this innocent child, he didn't have it in his heart to blame him for what had happened.

"She was crying and begging me to help her… to kill her," Jason said, still sobbing slightly. "And I was crying too because I didn't want to do it… but she was begging me and I didn't have a choice."

He curled into Hercules' chest, clinging to the burly wrestler even more.

Hercules sighed and rocked him back and forth gently.

"It was just a dream," he rumbled. "Just a dream…"

"It seemed so real," Jason answered.

"Sometimes nightmares do seem real," Hercules replied. "But they can't really hurt us… not if we don't let them."

He sat there with the little boy in his arms for a little while longer. At some point Ariadne had come over and joined them. She had put down the lamp on the floor and was gently stroking Jason's back soothingly. Eventually the burly wrestler felt the child beginning to nod off to sleep against him and looked down to see Jason yawning and blinking sleepily.

"Hercules?" the boy mumbled.

"Yes?" Hercules asked.

"You may not be the Hercules from my books," Jason murmured drowsily, voice on the edge of sleep, "but you're _my_ Hercules." He yawned again. "I love you," he added softly.

Hercules' heart clenched.

"And I love you, lad," he muttered thickly, dropping a kiss down into the dark curls. "More than you know."

He looked up to see Ariadne watching him with suspiciously bright eyes.

"He's a good boy," he murmured to the woman.

"Yes," Ariadne agreed, "and you are a good man."

Hercules looked away from her and back to the sleepy little boy he was holding, not sure how to answer her comment.

"Is it alright to come back in?" Icarus' voice was very quiet and gentle.

Hercules looked up to see him standing in the doorway with Pythagoras in his arms, the little blonde's head resting on his shoulder.

"He is nearly asleep so I thought I should see how everything was going," Icarus went on.

"It's good timing," Hercules replied softly. "This one's about ready to drop off too."

In pretty short order, the two children were settled back into bed and sleeping peacefully. Hercules pulled the blankets up and smoothed them out before motioning to Icarus and Ariadne to join him out in the main room. When they got out there he was not entirely surprised to see Cassandra waiting for them.

"I need a drink," he growled, reaching for a flagon of wine.

"What is wrong?" Icarus asked, looking from Hercules' tense face to Ariadne, who seemed equally worried. "I know Jason had a bad nightmare but I am told that it happens with young children at times."

"If it was just a simple nightmare it wouldn't be a problem," Hercules said. "I'm surprised that both the boys don't haven't had them more often to be honest." He paused for a moment and sighed deeply. "It was not just a nightmare," he said quietly. "He dreamed about killing Medusa."

"What?" Icarus demanded. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," Hercules groused. "Jason had a dream about killing Medusa. It seems that some of his adult memories are beginning to creep through… only he's too young to really understand them or deal with them."

"So what does that mean exactly?" Icarus asked again.

"I don't know," Hercules replied testily. "I do know that they're both far too young to cope with some of the things they have been forced to do in their lives though."

"It is as well that we are only a few days away from Cyprus," Ariadne interjected. "Then we can end this – hopefully before either of them have any more of their adult memories come through."

"Yeah," Hercules said, draining his cup. "Since there seems to be little point discussing this any further though, I for one am heading back to my bed."

He went to stand up only to find Ariadne holding his arm.

"Hercules," she said softly. "What he was saying about Medusa…"

"It's alright," Hercules answered. "I will always miss her. Always… But that little boy in there isn't to blame. Whatever he did as an adult… whatever he felt he had to do… that child is innocent." He patted the Queen's hand. "Medusa made her own choices… she didn't really let anyone tell her what to do. I know that better than anyone. She knew what she was doing."

"I just thought that this might have brought it all back," Ariadne murmured.

"It never really goes away," Hercules admitted. "There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think of her… but most of the time it's happy memories or pleasant dreams." He smiled softly. "I prefer to think of Medusa as she was when we were happy. Nothing that happened tonight will change that."

Ariadne smiled.

"I am glad to hear it," she said. "And now that everything is calm again I will bid you all a good night."


	5. Palea Paphos

The days at sea were passing quickly. Soon the _Argo_ would reach Cyprus, Hercules could ask for Aphrodite's forgiveness and they could put all of this behind them.

If he was honest with himself, Hercules would have to admit that he had mixed feelings about that. Of course he wanted his friends back to normal – back to their adult selves – and yet he would miss this version of them too. There was something about having the two children around that was rather wonderful after all.

It was early evening as Hercules stood in the prow of the ship, looking morosely out to sea. As far as he knew the two boys were inside having their supper and he supposed he should join them. He had wanted a few minutes on his own to try to sort through his thoughts though, so here he was.

Earlier on, Tydeus the navigator had had a long discussion with Acaeus the helmsman and had announced to the Queen that they should make landfall in Cyprus early tomorrow morning. Hercules had expected to be happy at the news and yet in the moment he had been told all he had felt was inexplicably sad.

A waft of distinctive floral perfume came to him on the breeze and he turned, slightly startled, to face his Queen.

"What's wrong?" Ariadne asked.

"I was just enjoying the evening air," Hercules said with an attempt at a smile. He looked around. "Where are Jason and Pythagoras?" he asked.

"Having supper," Ariadne answered. "Icarus is with them… and I came to see why you were not."

"Those boys are a constant source of worry for me," Hercules rumbled quietly.

"You are a good friend to them," Ariadne said softly. "A good father."

"I don't know about that," Hercules sighed. "I do my best."

He was struck by the similarity to the conversation he had had with Ariadne in the Palace, the night before Pasiphae had been resurrected; then though he had been trying to comfort her, now he suspected she was trying to do the same for him.

"Something is troubling you," Ariadne said gently coming to join him at the rail. "What is it?"

"It's nothing," Hercules replied. "I am being silly."

"Hercules…"

"We reach Cyprus tomorrow."

"Yes," said Ariadne. "And we will break the curse and return to our original course; to go to Colchis and destroy the Fleece." She looked back across the deck to the hatch to the cabins. "I will be glad to have _my_ Jason back," she admitted, "and I suspect Icarus feels the same way about Pythagoras."

"Indeed," Hercules said. "You are right." He sighed. "I'll be happy to have them back to normal too. It's just…"

"Just what?" Ariadne asked.

"I'll miss them as they are now," Hercules admitted. "Which is ridiculous."

"You are afraid that when they return to their normal selves you will lose the relationship you have with them now," Ariadne said softly.

"No," Hercules protested unconvincingly. "Maybe," he conceded.

"They love you," Ariadne pointed out. "They may not say it very often and they may not be as demonstrative as adults as they are as children, but it is clear to anyone how close the three of you are. You are family to each other and nothing can get in the way of that."

"Perhaps," Hercules muttered. "But it will never be quite the same, will it?"

"Maybe not," Ariadne agreed. "Although I doubt that after the past few weeks we will ever be able to go back to precisely how things were before."

"You will not."

Cassandra's light voice startled them both. The girl glided over, her expression unreadable.

"What do you mean?" Hercules demanded.

"The enchantment that you triggered has affected you all," Cassandra replied. "But do not think of it solely as a curse; Aphrodite meant it as both curse and gift."

"A gift?" Hercules burst out incredulously.

"Of course," Cassandra murmured. "For you understand one another better now, do you not?"

Hercules frowned deeply.

"So this has been some kind of test?" he demanded.

"It is not our place to question the Gods," Cassandra answered. "Their understanding is greater than ours… and you have learned much through Aphrodite's curse."

Hercules snorted and turned away, closing his eyes briefly.

"I think I always knew… deep down," he said.

"Knew what?" Ariadne asked.

"That neither of them had had the childhoods they deserved," Hercules muttered grimly. "That there was _something_ in both their pasts… a darkness that made them both act the way they did. After we found out about Pythagoras' father… well it all made sense."

"I don't understand," Ariadne said, a frown gracing her face. "What about Pythagoras' father?"

"Jason never told you?" Hercules asked in surprise. "Oh well… I suppose he must have thought it wasn't his story to tell or something."

"Hercules," Ariadne prompted him with some irritation.

"Pythagoras' father was a drunk from what I've gathered," the burly wrestler said. "And he wasn't a friendly one. Pythagoras doesn't like to talk about it much but I know his father used to hit his mother and I am fairly certain he used to hit Pythagoras too. I don't think he was ever kind to the boy. He… when this curse first turned him back into a child… Pythagoras was talking about his father and he said that his father was always angry at him but he did not know why."

"But Pythagoras is so kind," Ariadne protested. "How could anyone treat him that way?"

"I don't know," Hercules answered shortly. "And I find it amazing that he's still the person he is despite everything that must have happened to him as a child." He paused for a moment. "Then there's Jason," he went on. "He has always lacked any sense of self-preservation… anyone came along with a sad story and he'd be lining up to help them even if it meant he was risking his own life… and I never understood why."

"And now you do?" Ariadne asked.

"I think so, yes," Hercules rumbled sadly. "I think that everything we have learned about the boys in the last few weeks… he may not have been abused like Pythagoras but he was certainly neglected." He swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. "He throws himself into those ridiculous missions because he genuinely doesn't believe that his life is worth as much as anyone else's. I knew he must have been young when his father left but I didn't realise just how young he was… and I don't understand how any man who claimed to be a loving father could just up and leave like that."

Ariadne placed a gentle hand on his arm.

"We do not know the whole circumstances," she stated softly. "And since Aeson is dead it seems unlikely that we ever will. It may be that he felt he had no choice. At least Jason got to see him again before the end and to know that his father loved him and was proud of him."

"Maybe," Hercules growled, "but the damage was still done in the first place, wasn't it? To both those boys."

"But the gift within Aphrodite's curse was to give you the chance to give them the lives they should have had. Even if it was only for a little while," Cassandra murmured.

"They may not even remember it once they have returned to normal," Hercules snorted.

"They will remember," Cassandra answered enigmatically. "Everything you have done for them. They will not forget."

* * *

It was still early as they made their way up the hill to the Temple of Aphrodite at Palea Paphos, passing other pilgrims on their way up to the temenos. Pythagoras had chattered brightly all the way so far, seemingly oblivious to the tension among the adults of the party who were each wondering what they would find at the top of the hill and whether Aphrodite could be persuaded to reverse her enchantment.

For once it wasn't Hercules that was subject to the little blonde's incessant questioning of the world around him – Icarus was walking alongside the child and trying to answer his insatiably curious questions, and to be fair he really didn't seem to mind if the soft smile on his face was anything to go by.

Eventually though, Pythagoras seemed to run out of questions. He grabbed Icarus' hand and dragged him over to Hercules. He grabbed the burly wrestler's hand too, so that he was between the two men. Icarus looked at Hercules and grinned, gesturing with his head what he wanted to do. Without warning the unsuspecting Pythagoras, the two men lifted him off the ground, swinging him between them and being rewarded with the child's squeal of laughter.

Ariadne watched them with a soft smile from her position behind them, deep in conversation with Cassandra. The young Oracle might have the ear of the Gods but she had little experience of life outside the Temple of Poseidon and looked around herself with wide eyes. To the side of the path, Jason kept darting off into the long grass.

"Don't go too far," Ariadne called to him. "I do not want you getting lost."

Over the past couple of weeks, Jason's adventurous nature had been coming more and more to the fore and Ariadne didn't want him to go missing or fall and be hurt when they were so close to their goal.

The dark-haired child rolled his eyes at her but did stay a little closer to the path than he had been doing; never going outside the sight of one of the adults.

At the top of the hill, the ground opened out into a wide plateau. The Sanctuary of Aphrodite stood before them, its graceful columns rising from carved marble plinths to support the steeply pitched roof, and the pediment facing them contained a sculpture of the Goddess rising from the waves. It was surrounded by a sacred grove and here and there they could see priestesses of Aphrodite hurrying here and there about their duties (although Ariadne suspected that some of those duties would certainly not be suitable for children to see and learn about).

Hercules gulped.

"Well here goes," he said. "Anyone got any ideas what we need to do now?"

"You must make your offering to the Goddess," Cassandra murmured, "and ask for her forgiveness."

"You keep saying that," Hercules grumbled. "But you haven't actually told me what offering Aphrodite will want."

"The Goddess of Love is a demanding mistress," Cassandra answered.

"And she has always had my upmost devotion," Hercules retorted, reaching into his money pouch and retrieving what little he had in there.

"That will go a long way to appeasing her," Cassandra stated. "And your prayers will be pleasing to her ears… but Aphrodite is also the goddess of beauty and she delights in beautiful things." She looked the money in Hercules' hand with a raised eyebrow. "Put away your coins," she advised. "It is not your money that the Goddess desires."

"But that's all I have," Hercules objected.

Ariadne rolled her eyes and removed one of her bracelets.

"Here," she said, handing it to Hercules. "If it is not money that Aphrodite desires, perhaps she would prefer jewels. My father gave me that bracelet," she added softly. "It was a gift to celebrate my birthday."

"I can't take that from you," Hercules protested.

"You can and you will," Ariadne retorted. "I still have the other one of the pair to remember him by… and I would give this and more… everything I have, everything I own… for Jason's sake."

"That boy doesn't know how lucky he is to have you," Hercules proclaimed.

As the Queen turned away from the burly wrestler, Jason approached her. He produced a small bunch of wildflowers from behind his back and presented them to the startled girl.

"What's this?" Ariadne asked.

Jason shrugged and blushed.

"I thought you'd like them because they're pretty and you're pretty too," he mumbled.

Ariadne smiled with pleasure.

"They're _very_ pretty," she said, "and you are _very_ sweet." She took the flowers from the child. "Did you pick these?" she asked.

"I picked them on the way up here," Jason muttered.

"Thank you," Ariadne replied. "They are lovely." She paused as a thought occurred to her. "Do you think you could get another bunch just like these if one of us came with you?" she asked.

"Why?" Jason said, frowning.

"Because these are so beautiful that I think Aphrodite might like some too," Ariadne answered.

"Who's Aphrodite?" Jason asked.

"She's a goddess," Ariadne replied before anyone else could speak. "She is who we have come here to see… or rather Hercules has."

Before long Hercules was entering the Sanctuary of Aphrodite carrying Ariadne's bracelet and another small bunch of flowers as an offering. He had left all his companions outside and ventured in alone.

The chamber was cool and dark after the bright sunshine of the day outside, and the air hung heavy with the scent of the bundled herbs being burned on braziers around the room. Behind the main bomos, a statue of Aphrodite rose up on a tall plinth. A large fire bowl also stood on the plinth in front of the statue with spices burning in it, and around the bowl was space for offerings to the Goddess.

Hercules moved over to it and placed the bracelet and flowers next to the bowl. He bowed his head respectfully to the statue, before raising his face to look up at it, hands outstretched at his sides with the palms facing outwards, in the traditional position of prayer. He began to appeal to Aphrodite for her forgiveness and help.

The sun was setting by the time he left the Sanctuary. Hercules was exhausted; his feet ached from the long hours of standing, his belly ached from lack of food and he felt numb from the constant litany of prayers. He wasn't sure what he had expected to be honest, but he had hoped to have been given some kind of sign that the Goddess had relented and removed her curse. In the absence of that sign he had simply continued to pray for as long as he could.

Now he stepped outside, hopeful that he would find his two closest friends returned to normal. It took a moment for his eyes to readjust to the change in light levels and for him to spot his companions.

Ariadne, Icarus and Cassandra were sitting in the shade of one of the trees, chatting idly. Hercules looked around hopefully for the other two. When he saw them, his heart plummeted. It hadn't worked. The two boys were still young children. They were sitting nearer to the road, playing knucklebones in the dust.

Hercules made his way over to the adults with a defeated expression.

"I tried," he rumbled. "I begged for forgiveness in every way I could think of… but Aphrodite hasn't listened to my prayers."

"You did everything you could," Ariadne said comfortingly, standing and placing a gentle hand on the big man's arm.

"What do we do now?" Hercules asked. "What in the name of the Gods do we do now?"

"We try again tomorrow," Ariadne answered firmly. "We come back here every day for as long as it takes."

"But Aphrodite might never relent and answer my prayers," Hercules countered morosely.

"I have to believe that she will," Ariadne retorted. "And I will not leave here until she does."

* * *

It was still night time when Jason woke up. For a while he lay there in the dark, watching the shadows on the ceiling and listening to Hercules' stentorian snoring coming from his makeshift bed on the other side of the room and wondering what had woken him up.

He felt odd; not ill exactly but definitely strange – it was almost as though his skin didn't fit him very well and there was something wriggling about in his stomach. He wondered if he should wake Hercules up to tell him but he wasn't feeling sick and he hadn't had a bad dream so maybe he shouldn't.

He was desperately thirsty though. Perhaps it would be alright to go and have a drink of water and then come back to bed? He could go and get a drink without ever having to disturb Hercules' sleep and he was almost certain that he could manage to pour a drink from the big jug in the other room without spilling too much.

Taking care not to wake up Pythagoras who was still fast asleep on the other side of the bed, Jason slipped out from under the covers. The wooden floorboards were shockingly cold against his bare feet and he shivered involuntarily and wrapped his arms around himself. Now that he was out of bed the weird feeling increased; the wriggling in his tummy becoming decidedly uncomfortable.

As silently as possible, the little boy crossed the room and slipped out through the door. The big jug was in the centre of the dining table and there was no way he would be able to reach it while standing on the floor, so he moved across the room and knelt up on one of the stools, pulling the jug towards himself as carefully as he could before slipping down off the stool to stand again.

The jug was heavier than Jason thought and he couldn't help but spill a little water on the table as he struggled to tip it properly, both small hands holding it. All in all he hadn't done too badly though, and he sipped the cup of water he had poured gratefully. The water was cool and refreshing but did little to calm the writhing in his stomach. Jason frowned. He felt hot and cold all at once and he couldn't stop shivering. Maybe he was sick after all.

With his arms clutched firmly around his stomach, Jason began to go back to the bedroom, wanting Hercules. The big man would know what to do. He hadn't got far though when a wave of dizziness hit him and a sharp pain in his stomach made him double over with a quiet whimper. Before he really knew what was happening, he had dropped to his hands and knees on the floor, landing with a soft thud; too quiet to wake the sleeping adults in the nearby rooms. He whimpered softly again and curled in on himself, clutching his stomach. He closed his eyes tightly and wished that whatever this was would go away.

It was nearly dawn when Jason woke up again – although to be fair he didn't actually remember going to sleep. For a moment he lay there, trying to work out what he was doing on the floor, before the events of last night came back to him. Whatever that had been he felt fine now. He went to rub his gritty eyes with his hand but froze, staring at it. His hand was a lot larger and certainly rougher than he remembered it being.

Jason looked down at himself and grinned as all the memories of his life came back to him in a rush. He was an adult again. Then of course it hit him that he was once again waking up on the floor completely naked, and embarrassment reared its head (memories of the 'rabid dog incident' coming to mind), although he was fairly certain that this time it couldn't actually be classed as his fault.

As quietly as he could, Jason pushed himself up from the floor and slipped silently back into the room that he usually shared with Ariadne but had recently been sharing with Hercules and Pythagoras. He grabbed a pair of trousers from the trunk in the corner and pulled them on silently before turning to look at his two friends.

Hercules was still snoring away in the corner. It would take far more than a quietly moving Jason to wake him up when he was deeply asleep. In the double bed that Jason usually shared with Ariadne, Pythagoras was also still fast asleep. He had been returned to his adult self too, and Jason was certain that under the blankets he would also be naked. The young hero smiled warmly as he looked at his friends.

Then he slid back out of the room and went in search of his wife. He knew where she would be of course: in the smaller chamber usually occupied by Hercules. In the doorway, he paused to look at her, watching her sleep.

Even in slumber, Ariadne was very beautiful. She was lying on her side, facing the door, her face relaxed and her long, thick braid of glossy black hair draped across her shoulder. Jason smiled softly to himself as he padded across the room and slipped under the covers beside her.

As Ariadne woke up, she became aware that someone was lying in the bed next to her. Panic rose in her chest, although she tried to control it. Who would have dared to do this? As far as she knew, the crew were all completely loyal. She tried to control her breathing to make it seem as though she was still asleep, knowing that her knife was out of reach on the far side of the room and fearing that she would be attacked the instant she showed she was awake.

A low chuckle reached her ears. Clearly whoever was here with her had worked out that she was awake. The chuckle had sounded incredibly familiar. Knowing that there was no use in pretending since whoever this was knew she wasn't sleeping, Ariadne slowly opened her eyes and found herself looking into a pair of hazel eyes that she knew (and loved) so very well.

"Good morning beautiful," Jason said with a small smile. "I was going to wake you up but you looked so lovely and so peaceful that I just couldn't resist coming across and joining you in bed."

"Jason," Ariadne breathed. "Oh Jason." She buried her face in his chest for a moment before pulling back to look at him. "You are you again."

"Technically I think I was always me," Jason pointed out, his voice still faintly amused. "Just a smaller version of me."

Ariadne slapped him gently on the arm.

"I believe you know exactly what I mean," she said.

Jason chuckled again.

After so many weeks of worry and to have built her hopes up yesterday, only to have them dashed when Aphrodite had not appeared to answer Hercules' prayers, Ariadne couldn't help the fact that her eyes welled up and tears slipped unbidden down her cheeks. She was disappointed at her own weakness.

"Hey, no tears," Jason murmured, sounding a little dismayed. "There's no need to cry." He pulled her close, tucking her head into his shoulder and resting his chin on top of her head. "Unless you're disappointed that I am here of course," he added teasingly. "I could always go and ask Aphrodite to turn me back into mini-me if that is what you would like."

"Don't you dare," Ariadne growled.

She looked up to see the mirth in her husband's face and slapped him on the arm for a second time.

"We have been through too much to get you back to you _this_ time," she declared. "I do not want to have to go through that ever again."

She settled back against Jason's chest once more, listening to the soft thrum of his heartbeat and relishing the warm feeling of his arms wrapped around her.

"Not that I am complaining," she went on, "but what happened? When we left the Sanctuary yesterday it seemed as though Aphrodite had not accepted Hercules' apology or his appeal; that she had not answered his prayers."

"No idea," Jason answered honestly. "I woke up in the night feeling strange and came to get a drink of water. I suddenly got very dizzy and there was this hideous pain in my stomach. The next thing I knew I was waking up naked on the floor and I was back to normal. That was a few minutes ago. I slipped back into our room to get some trousers and then I came in here."

"And Pythagoras?" Ariadne asked.

"He's back to normal too," Jason replied. "He's still asleep."

Ariadne sighed in relief and lay there for a few moments, completely relaxed and comfortable, nestled warmly in her husband's arms.

"It has been difficult," she admitted. "You were a very sweet little boy but I wanted _my_ Jason back."

"I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to apologise for," Ariadne asserted. "This was not your fault."

"No, because it was mainly Hercules'," Jason stated.

"Do not be too hard on him," Ariadne murmured. "He has been wonderful for the last few weeks. He has looked after both you and Pythagoras so well… the way a loving father would have."

"I know," Jason admitted.

Ariadne pulled back and looked him in the face.

"How much do you actually remember about the last few weeks?" she asked.

"Everything," Jason replied. "It's odd," he added reflectively. "I can remember looking for Aphrodite's tears as an adult and then I was suddenly a child again. It feels almost like a dream… only it wasn't."

"No," Ariadne agreed. "It wasn't… and now that it is over I would hope that we can get back to some sort of normal life – whatever that may be." She sighed. "There are times when I come very close to suggesting that we give all of this up… find somewhere to settle and lead an ordinary life. Over the years there have been so many times when I have wished to have been born the daughter of an ordinary citizen so that I might have a life of my own choosing rather than one dictated by duty… but I am saying too much again."

Jason brought his hand up to cup her face.

"I like listening to you talk," he assured her.

Ariadne laughed softly.

"Do you remember the first time you said that to me?" she asked.

"Of course I do," Jason answered. "It was the first time I tried to kill Pasiphae and the first time I spent the night in your chamber with you. It was the happiest night I had had since I arrived in Atlantis up to that point… and it's still true: I _do_ like listening to you."

He leant in and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

"We should probably get up," Ariadne ventured. "Everyone else will be up soon and we should be there to tell them what has happened."

"Pythagoras and Hercules can do that," Jason countered, nuzzling in to her neck and dropping gentle kisses at the point where her neck joined her shoulder. "In fact I suspect that Icarus will be so pleased to see Pythagoras as an adult again that they will want to disappear off on their own for a while, so any explanation will have to wait until they re-emerge anyway."

"Even so, we should probably be there," Ariadne protested, although her resolve was weakening.

"I would rather be here with you," Jason replied. "Just the two of us… We don't get anywhere near enough time to ourselves. I am sure our friends wouldn't begrudge us a little time on our own. Besides," he added, dropping another kiss into the hollow of Ariadne's collarbone, "no-one else is up yet. We'll hear them moving about out there when they are. We can get up and join them then. For now let's just be together."

Ariadne smiled at him.

"Alright," she said. "Have it your way."

She snuggled into her husband's arms and relaxed. As she lay there, she felt Jason's breathing even out and looked up to find that his eyes were closed. She smiled as she realised he had fallen asleep, a peaceful expression and a soft smile gracing his features. Ariadne reached up and gently stroked her hand down the side of his face. Then, with a smile on her own lips, she allowed her eyes to drift closed and she slipped into a light doze, relaxed and happy now that everything was back to normal.

* * *

Hercules was a man on a mission. It was a week since Aphrodite's curse had been lifted and his friends had been returned to their normal selves. They were now back on course for Colchis – albeit a few weeks behind where they had been. In that week Hercules had managed to find time for a quiet and private chat with Pythagoras – just to ensure that there were no hard feelings about what had happened (not that he had imagined there would be for a moment – Pythagoras couldn't hold a grudge to save his life).

He hadn't been able to catch Jason alone in that time though – hence his self-imposed mission now. It was true that Jason seemed pretty philosophical about everything that had happened in the past few weeks (seemed more relaxed than Hercules had seen him for months to be honest) but the burly wrestler wanted to make sure that all was forgiven between them; that there was no resentment to flare up again at some point in the future.

He came up onto deck and looked around, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the bright sunshine, before making his way forwards towards the prow of the ship. They were currently beached on a small island to allow the timbers of the _Argo_ to dry out, and most of the occupants of the ship had gone ashore. Hercules knew, however, from speaking to Ariadne that Jason was still on board somewhere.

Rounding the side of the forward mast, Hercules found his friend sitting with his back to it, a piece of planking resting on his bent knees with some parchment on top of it. Jason was making quick, bold strokes on the parchment with a piece of charcoal.

Hercules watched him for a moment, nonplussed. Whilst he had become used to seeing the child version of his friend drawing, he had never seen (or expected to see) the adult version engaged in the activity. He had to admit that Jason was rather good – although his style was like nothing Hercules had ever seen before.

"Is everything alright?"

Jason's voice startled Hercules – he hadn't realised that his friend knew he was there, given that he hadn't looked up from his parchment.

"Yeah," Hercules rumbled. "I just wanted a chat."

Jason raised his eyebrows and put his drawing down on the deck at his side, as Hercules sat himself down on a crate.

"Alright," he said. "What did you want to talk about? Is something wrong?"

"No, no… nothing like that," Hercules answered. He fell silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "You're actually pretty good at that," he added, nodding towards the parchment.

Jason snorted.

"Not really," he disagreed. "I just like to doodle. It's not like I've got any real talent or anything."

Hercules found that he didn't agree but held his tongue; not wanting to argue.

"It is something you enjoy though," he said.

"Yeah," Jason replied. "I always have… but I think you know that now. I just don't really get much time for it normally."

"Mmm," Hercules answered. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about… You do know that I never intended what happened to you boys to happen, don't you? And that I'm sorry."

Jason gave him a half smile.

"Yes," he said frankly, "and it's alright. It was a mistake, that's all. We all make them… and I'd be a bloody hypocrite if I held this over you after all the things I've done over the last few months… and there's no harm done in the end."

"So everything's good between us then?"

"Everything's good," Jason confirmed. He looked steadily at Hercules. "You still have questions though… I don't need to be the Oracle to see that."

"Maybe one or two," Hercules conceded.

"Go ahead," said Jason. "I can't promise to be able to answer everything though."

Hercules looked at him thoughtfully.

"So are you really younger than Pythagoras then?" he asked eventually.

Jason snorted a startled laugh.

"Of all the questions you could ask and that's the one you start with?" he said incredulously.

"It was the first one I could think of," replied Hercules defensively.

"Fair enough," Jason answered. "In answer to your question, yes I am younger than Pythagoras… but there's only a few months in it as far as I can tell."

"As far as you can tell?"

"I don't precisely know when my birthday is," Jason muttered with a little embarrassment. "I know what time of year it is but I don't know the exact date."

"How can you not know when your own birthday is?" Hercules demanded

"Where I grew up we didn't use the Attic calendar," Jason answered defensively. "So the dates don't correspond exactly."

"In In-ger-land," Hercules said.

"It's England," Jason replied with a smile at his friend's attempt at pronunciation.

"And that's not in Hellas is it?" Hercules asked. "You are not Greek."

"I was born in Atlantis," Jason answered somewhat evasively – as he always did when the subject of his childhood came up, Hercules noted clinically.

"I know that," Hercules said. "But you weren't raised anywhere in Hellas; you weren't raised Greek."

"No," Jason acknowledged. "Where I grew up was a _very_ long way from here."

"In a house for unwanted children," Hercules murmured.

Jason tensed.

"We're getting towards subjects I don't really want to talk about," he said.

They lapsed into silence for a while. Eventually, Hercules roused himself.

"I could probably help you," he offered.

"With what?" Jason asked, confused.

"If I thought about it for a bit I could probably tell you when your birthday is… if you'd like that."

"How on earth could you know that?"

Hercules smiled, his eyes shining with good humour.

"Your parents were the King and Queen of Atlantis," he pointed out. "You were born as heir to the throne. When you were born there was a big announcement and days of celebrations. They held a pankration to mark the occasion. I can still remember it clearly. Give me a little time to think about it and I could probably tell you precisely when it was."

Jason blinked.

"They really celebrated like that?" he asked, sounding astounded.

"Of course," Hercules said. "You were their Prince; the hope for Atlantis' future."

Jason stared at him.

Hercules smiled fondly at him, shaking his head.

"You really don't understand what it means to be born of royal blood, do you?" he asked. "No, don't answer that," he added, holding up one hand to forestall any comments from his friend. "It wasn't a question that I wanted answering."

They both fell silent again. Hercules eased himself into a more comfortable position on the crates. He noticed that Jason's eyes kept straying towards the piece of parchment he had put down and couldn't help smiling, remembering seeing the little boy that Jason had so recently been doing exactly the same thing (and if he had a couple of the pictures the child had drawn tucked away safely in his room – well, no-one needed to know).

"I have one last question for now," Hercules rumbled.

"Go on," Jason prompted with some trepidation.

"Why did you never tell us you were younger than Pythagoras?" Hercules said.

"You never asked," Jason replied simply.

Hercules grinned.

"Fair enough," he said. He looked up at the position of the sun. "Well, I think it's about time I went and found a flagon of wine," he added, standing up.

"And perhaps a pie?" Jason asked, giving his older companion a lop-sided smile and pushing himself up from the deck.

"Cheeky sod," Hercules grumbled.

Jason's grin broadened, but as Hercules went to move past him, he caught hold of the burly wrestler's arm, his grin falling away to an earnest expression.

"Hercules?" he said. "Everything that you've done over the past few weeks? Thank you… I know it can't have been easy having to look after us both… but you've been amazing. So… yeah… thank you for everything."

Hercules swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat.

"You're welcome, Trouble," he murmured with a faint smile. "I wouldn't have changed a thing."

He pulled Jason in for the sort of hug that would have been second nature a year ago but hadn't happened so much of late – the last few weeks notwithstanding. And if they both held on a little tighter and for a little longer than strictly necessary? Well, who was counting.

 


End file.
